Читать книгу The Oyster: Where, How and When to Find, Breed, Cook and Eat It - Eustace Clare Grenville Murray - Страница 4

Table of Contents

The R. canon correct; Alimentary Qualities of the Oyster; Profitable Investment; Billingsgate, and London Consumption; English Oyster-beds; Jersey Oysters; French Oyster-beds on the Coast of Brittany.

OF the Millions who live to eat and eat to live in this wide world of ours, how few are there who do not, at proper times and seasons, enjoy a good oyster. It may not be an ungrateful task, therefore, if I endeavour to inform them what species of animal the little succulent shell-fish is, that affords to man so much gastronomical enjoyment—how born and bred and nurtured; when, and where; and, lastly, how best it may be eaten, whether in its living and natural state, or having undergone the ordeal of cooking by the skill of a superior artist.

I have oftentimes been told that it is a mere question of fastidiousness, or fashion, that oysters should be served for human food only at a certain fixed period of the year—those months possessing the letter r being proverbially the only months when the oyster is fit for human food. Why not, such reasoners have said, eat oysters all the year round? Life is short. Why not obtain the first of gastronomical enjoyments every month of the year and every day of the month? I can in no manner go with these opinions, either from my practical knowledge of the oyster, or from any just reasoning.

I am aware that there are many good men and true, and others calling themselves, somewhat erroneously, sportsmen, beyond the white cliffs of Britain, who would eat an oyster on the hottest day of June and July as they would a partridge, a pheasant, or a salmon at any season of the year. Sufficient the names oyster, partridge, pheasant—all gastronomical delights—all to be eaten, and by them eaten whensoever and wheresoever served, what matters it? I am also aware that in our good City of London, in the hottest and earliest days of August,^[1] oysters are gulped down by the thousand: it is, nevertheless, an error—a revolting, unhealthy, unclean error—which ought to be denied, both at home and abroad, by the strong hand of the law.

I, for my part, utterly and entirely ignore fish or fowl of the game species, as fit for human food during the seasons of breeding; and although an oyster may be eatable in August, if the month be hot it is rarely fresh; and what is more disgusting or more likely to be injurious to man than a stale oyster? That which I have said, however, on the oyster in this little book which I offer to the million—for the million are interested in the subject—will, I hope, induce those who have hitherto broken through a rule strictly adhered to by all gastronomes, to abstain in future; and those who have hitherto enjoyed oyster-eating, fearlessly to eat on and secure the first and foremost of all gastronomical indulgences provided for man—only in due season.

On the 25th of July, says Brand, the antiquary, being St. James the Apostle's Day, the priests of old were wont to bless apples; and a popular belief too, in 1588, though generally ignored in the more enlightened days in which we live, was, that whoever ate oysters on that day would not be without money for the remainder of the year. This is very probable, for without they were selected with great care, disease and even death might follow. This conjunction of apples and oysters on St. James's Day may have suggested Bianca's remark in the "Taming of the Shrew," when comparing the resemblance of the old Pedant to that of Vincentio, which she remarks was as complete as that of an oyster to an apple.

One must, therefore, take care not to eat oysters during the months of June and July, because they are unwholesome on account of the spawning-time; and also be careful in their selection in August. There are instances when persons, after having eaten oysters during these months, have become ill, and have even died. Last summer, at Ostend, thirty persons were taken ill in consequence of having eaten oysters in the month of July. They are, during these months, very thin, and without taste; in the month of September they become again fat and eatable, which may be accounted for by the fact of their being self-generated. The strength of the poor oysters is entirely spent in fattening themselves, in order the more to tickle the palate of the epicure in the proper season.

Now let us proceed to open the oyster.

The Oyster! The mere writing of the word creates sensations of succulence—gastronomical pleasures, nutritive food, easy digestion, palatable indulgence—then go sleep in peace!

Lobster salads, beef and veal, truffles and chestnuts, all good in their way, are, nevertheless, attended with evil consequences to the human frame.

But oysters—ye pleasant companions of the midnight hours, or the mid-day feast; is there a man, woman or child in all Europe—ay, or in Asia, Africa, or America—who does not owe you a debt of gratitude which they repay to the full by the enjoyment of your society tête-à-tête? You are eaten raw and alive, cooked and scolloped, in sauce and without sauce. True, true, oh oyster! thou art the best beloved of the loved!

The oyster, when eaten moderately, is, without contradiction, a wholesome food, and one of the greatest delicacies in the world. It contains much nutritive substance, which is very digestive, and produces a peculiar charm and an inexplicable pleasure. After having eaten oysters we feel joyous, light, and agreeable—yes, one might say, fabulously well. He who has eaten for the first time oysters is best enabled to judge of this; for, soon after having eaten them, he will experience a sensation he never felt before, and never had an idea of. This sensation scarcely remains with people who eat oysters every day; it is more practically felt when oysters are eaten for breakfast or before dinner, although they are also very wholesome in the evening, when taken moderately. Gourmets and epicures eat the oyster in its natural state, except that the beard is taken away. In England it is eaten with pepper, in Holland with vinegar, in Germany frequently with lemon-juice; but I am of the opinion, and am convinced, that when taken with the liquor they still contain, they are more digestible and more tasty. The opinion that this fluid is salt water, is an error; it is the white blood of the oyster itself, which it emits when injured in having its upper shell broken off. If it were sea-water, it would have a disagreeable bitter taste, and cause sickness; but as this does not take place, but on the contrary gives a fine taste to the oyster, the error is evident. The error appears to arise from the fact that unconscientious oyster dealers wash the oysters with salt and water in order to give them a better appearance, as they say.

"The oyster," says a writer in No. 824 of the "Family Herald"—that most agreeable of all window-seat books—"is a species of food combining the most precious alimentary qualities. Its meat is soft, firm, and delicate. It has sufficient flavour to please the taste, but not enough to excite to surfeit. Through a quality peculiar to itself, it favours the intestinal and gastric absorption, mixing easily with other food; and, assimilating with the juices of the stomach, it aids and favours the digestive functions. There is no other alimentary substance, not even excepting bread, which does not produce indigestion under certain given circumstances, but oysters never. This is a homage due to them. They may be eaten to-day, to-morrow, for ever, in profusion; indigestion is not to be feared, and we may be certain that no doctor was ever called in through their fault. Of course we except cooked oysters. Besides their valuable digestive qualities, oysters supply a recipe not to be despised in the liquor they contain. It is produced by the sea-water they have swallowed, but which, having been digested, has lost the peculiar bitterness of salt water. This oyster-water is limpid, and slightly saline in taste. Far from being purgative, like sea-water, it promotes digestion. It keeps the oysters themselves fresh, prolongs their life for some time until it is destroyed in our stomachs, or until the oyster has been transformed into a portion of ourselves."

The degree of importance which different persons attach to matters connected with the world in which we live, depends, of course, in a great measure, on the manner in which they view them.

One person considers a loving wife, and four hundred a year, wealth and happiness; another would be miserable without four thousand, and could dispense with the wife. Some consider a post with five thousand a year a tolerable means of existence; others a commissionership with twelve hundred. Some seek a good consulship; others, till they have travelled from St. Petersburg and back in a telega, or sledge, half a dozen times during mid-winter, use the interest, which in other days would have secured a snug governorship, even in the Island of Barataria, to obtain a queen's messenger's place. At least so it used to be. Whether competitive examinations will lead to our having the right man in the right place, the round pegs in round holes, and the square pegs in square ones, still remains to be seen. And so is it with most things in life, whether personal or gastronomical. Different men are of different opinions; some like apples, and some like—onions; but I have scarcely ever yet met with the man who has refused a thoroughly good oyster.

There is not a man, however unobservant, but knows that oysters are a great source of profit to some of that multitude which rises every morning without knowing exactly how, when, and where it shall dine. Billingsgate in the oyster season is a sight and a caution. Boats coming in loaded; porters struggling with baskets and sacks; early loungers looking on—it is so pleasant to see other people work—buyers and cheapeners, the fish salesman in his rostrum, the wealthy purchaser who can lay out his hundreds and buy his thousands—all to be met with, together with that noise and bustle, and, far beyond it, all that incredible earnestness which always distinguishes an English market.

Oysters, says Dryasdust, in his very useful commercial work—in which, however, he makes alarming mis-statements—oysters are consumed in London in incredible quantities, "and notwithstanding their high price, are largely eaten by the middle and lower classes!"

Thanking Dryasdust for his information, and being one of the great middle class ourselves, we can safely assert that oysters are not high in price. Fancy being able to purchase twelve succulent dainties for one six-pence at Ling's or Quin's, at Proctor's or Pim's, or any other celebrated shell-fish shop! Twelve "lumps of delight," as the Mussulman—not mussel man—calls his sweetmeats! and then fancy Dryasdust saying that they are high in price! Oh shame, where is thy blush!

A farm of four acres, if well handled, may give occupation, and even bring pecuniary gain, to the possessor. A garden, for those who thoroughly understand and enjoy it, may secure untold pleasures, and perhaps help to pay the rent of the cottage. But an "oyster-bed" is a pleasure—an el dorado—a mine of wealth, in fact, which fills the owners' pockets with gold, and affords to the million untold gastronomical enjoyment and healthy food. On the money part of the question, the Scientific and Useful column of Number 825 of the "Family Herald" furnishes the following information: "A very interesting report has been recently made to the French Government on the results of experiments made for the improvement of oyster-beds. The locality chosen was the Bay of St. Brieux, on the coast of Brittany. Between March and May, 1859, about 3,000,000 oysters, taken from different parts of the sea, were distributed in ten longitudinal beds in the above bay. The bottom was previously covered with old oyster shells and boughs of trees arranged like fascines. To these the young oysters attach themselves, and so fruitful are the results that one of the fascines was found at the end of six months to have no less than 20,000 young oysters on it. The report further states that 12,000 hectares may be brought into full bearing in three years at an annual expense not exceeding 10,000 francs."

M. Laviciare, Commissary of the Maritime Inscription, in his 1860 report to M. Coste, of the success of these operations in the Bay of St. Brieux, states that "a recent examination has fully and satisfactorily proved the advantageous results obtained on the five banks which have been laid down, and which have exceeded the most sanguine expectations. Three fascines, which were taken up indiscriminately from one of the banks formed in June, 1859, contained about 20,000 oysters each, of from one inch to two inches in diameter. The total expense for forming the above bank was 221f.; and if the 300 fascines laid down on it be multiplied by 20,000, 600,000 oysters will be obtained, which, if sold at 20f. a thousand, will produce 120,000f. If, however, the number of oysters on each fascine were to be reckoned at only 10,000, the sum of 60,000f. would be received, which, for an expenditure of only 221f. would give a larger profit than any other known branch of industry."

But the breeding and fattening of the London oyster has long been a lucrative branch of trade, of which Cockaine may well be proud. It is carried on "contagious" to London, as Mrs. Malaprop would say—principally in Essex and Kent. The rivers Crouch, Blackwater, and Colne are the chief breeding places in the former, and the channel of the Swale and the Medway in the latter. These are contiguous to Milton; hence Dibdin's song, and hence also the corruption of "melting hoysters;" melting they are too. The corruption is classical, so let it stand.

Exclusive of oysters bred in Essex and Kent, vast numbers are brought from Jersey, Poole, and other places along the coast, and are fattened in beds. The export of oysters from Jersey alone is very considerable, having amounted on an average of the four years ending with 1832^[2] to 208,032 bushels a year. The Jersey fishing then employed, during the season, about 1500 men, 1000 women and children, and 250 boats. Think of this, ye oyster-eaters! Think that ye are doing—such is the wise ordination of an overruling Providence—some good when you are swallowing your ante-prandial oyster, and are giving employment to some portion of those 3000 people who work for you at Jersey, besides helping to feed the cold-fingered fishmonger, who, with blue apron and skilful knife, tempts you to "Hanother dazzen, sir?"

Of the quantity of oysters consumed in London we cannot give even an approximate guess. It must amount to millions of bushels. Fancy, if you can, also, that curiously courteous exchange which goes on every Christmas between our oyster-eating country cousins and our turkey and goose-loving Londoners. To the man

"Who hath been long in city pent,

'Tis very sweet to gaze upon the fair

And open brow of heaven;—to breathe a prayer

Full in the face of the blue firmament"—

sings John Keats. Oh, if he had been but an oyster-eater, that article from the "Quarterly," savage and slaughterly, would not have killed him; but it is also very sweet to gaze upon a turkey, a leash of birds, a brace of pheasants, and, as Mrs. Tibbetts hath it, "a real country hare." Such a present is promptly repaid by a fine cod packed in ice, and two barrels of oysters. How sweet are these when eaten at a country home, and opened by yourselves, the barrel being paraded on the table with its top knocked out, and with the whitest of napkins round it, as we shall presently have occasion to show. How sweet it is, too, to open some of the dear natives for your pretty cousin, and to see her open her sweet little mouth about as wide as Lesbia's sparrow did for his lump of—not sugar, it was not then invented—but lump of honey! How sweet it is, after the young lady has swallowed her half dozen, to help yourself! The oyster never tastes sweeter than when thus operated on by yourself, so that you do not "job" the knife into your hand! True labour has a dignity about it. The only time when I, who have seen most people, from Tom Thumb to the Benicia Boy, from Madame Doche to the Empress Eugenie, and from manly, sea-going Prince Alfred to the Staleybridge Infant and Jemmy Shaw's "Spider"—the only time, I say, that I have ever seen a nobleman look like a nobleman, was when a noble duke, a peer not only of England and Scotland, but of la belle France also, owned that he could do two things better than most people, and that was, open oysters and polish his own boots. I, like Othello, when he upbraided Iago for the last time, "looked down to his feet," but found that it was no fable.

So important is our illustrious bivalve as an article of trade, that it is protected by law. It is said that the only two things that George the Fourth ever did—the great Georgius, whom Mr. Thackeray envies and satirises—were to invent a shoe-buckle and an exquisite hair-dye. The brains of the black Brunswicker could do no more. But there is one act also—an Act of Parliament^[3]—which was passed in his reign, for which he is to be thanked. The man who was at once the Lucullus and Apicius of his times must have had some hand in the framing of that Act.