Oysters Again

For many years the joy of oysters passed me by. My father, on occasion, and usually for no special reason, would arrive home with oysters. He brought them home in tall thin bottles looking suspiciously like specimen jars.

I don't think it was until my mother and I started our illicit outings to Long Reef on Sydney's northern beaches that I came to appreciate an oyster. There was no pre-meditation from recollection. The outings usually involved taking our young kelpie pup (named Haggis by my Scottish father as he said she was a bit of everything) in the car down to Long Reef. Once on the reef, my mother would produce a screwdriver from her pocket, (last seen in the boot of the car in the toolbox - perhaps there was an element of pre-meditation after all) and away we would go. We never took any home. We just had a feed and left.

Years later I ate oysters bought at a pub in Sydney. It was 1978 and, along with a couple of thousand other Australians, I had a terrible bout of gastroenteritis after heavy rain had caused contamination by sewage. It was over two weeks before I realised I wasn't going to die! For information on this outbreak here is the link.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/514174.
The good news is, however, that oyster farming is seriously monitored these days in Australia and around the world.

 It does amaze me the amount of literature written about these precious bivalves. Way at the top of the Nobel Prize for Oyster Writing would have to be  Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher's, 'Consider the Oyster' (1941) although it certainly isn't the earliest. I have recently read Sex, Death and Oysters by Robb Walsh and it has inspired me to learn more about their place in culinary history and to also look at current day farming methods, sustainability and where to go from here. For those with an interest in the oyster industry, especially on the south coast of NSW, you could do worse than follow David Maidment Oysters blogsite.  For recipes, The House of Oysters is hard to beat and also includes interesting sections on the life of the oyster and the history of oysters in Tasmania.

My interest in oysters also gives me an excuse to delve into the wonderful world of accessories for oyster dining! These vintage oyster plates I found on Pinterest are glorious!
 http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/06/e9/87/06e98774700540f982de10dc09695c5c.jpg
I have already started my collection although I have yet to find a Limoges oyster plate at my local Narooma New and Used or the Narooma Vinnie's but I live in hope. And don't let me start on oyster print fabric!

Consider the oyster and enjoy.

Finger Limes

I purchased some finger limes at Grandpa's Garden in Narooma over the Easter weekend. They are grown locally and I grab them whenever I see them.  I have two small trees growing happily in pots at present in Canberra but I will have to bring them to Narooma for winter or treat them like royalty in the sunroom in Canberra (a bit like L'Orangerie du Versailles) until they are a bit more grown up. They haven't fruited as yet but by next year I could be in luck. I ordered mine online from Daley's Fruit Nursery and they are a green variety.

Although I will not argue that they look a little like wrinkly cocktail frankfurters, their external appearance is not what is important here. Sliced down the middle their little hidden jewels are revealed. The little 'crystals'  really do look like caviar. This NSW Government Fact Sheet has information on the different varieties as well as cultivation notes.

I paired them with some Wagonga Inlet oysters, freshly shucked by my very own oyster shucking daughter. The result was, as expected, sensational.

I have been conducting some research into other ways to use the fruit and one that could become a firm favourite is to add to a gin and tonic. I will conduct that experiment this afternoon!

Post Script: Experiment completed and the result was positive!