Mississippi Sideboard #4: The Oyster and I

"Eating a raw oyster is like stealing a kiss from the ocean," muses Jesse Yancy in his essay on Mississippi's most iconic mollusk.

“The Oyster and I” is the latest installment of Mississippi Sideboard, a monthly collaboration with food, culture, and history writer Jesse Yancy. Jesse’s long-running blog of the same name is a foray into the particularities of southern cuisine and an exploration of the lesser-known parts of Mississippi history. Oyster season has now opened in Mississippi for the first time in five years (albeit with strict catch limits), so consider Jesse’s dispatch on the oyster a seasonally appropriate amuse bouche to start your day.

Photo of oysters at Saltine Restaurant by Jesse Yancy.

Unlike some, I don’t remember my first oyster as epiphanic. That’s no reflection on the oyster, which I’m certain was good and plump, fresh from the Gulf, arguably among the best in the world, but I ate it on my first trip to Jackson, which was an altogether dizzying affair for a seven-year-old boy from a sawmill village in north Mississippi.

After the thrill of seeing the frothy Rez from the Trace, riding in a highway patrol cruiser (my last time in the front seat of one) and ogling at the Capitol dome, eating oysters at the Mayflower seemed pedestrian. The bouffants of the waitresses made far more of an impression than the shellfish, and when ours yelled at some idiot from Atlanta who ordered a poached egg, I tried to die three times. Out of sheer terror, I left her all the money I had—two quarters—because she glared at me when I asked for an extra straw.

Oysters enjoy a sex life that makes human sexuality totally lame, switching sexes according to a variety of environmental factors. If you’re a young oyster (a spat), one season‘s Uncle Louie might be the next’s Aunt Louise. Not only that, but oysters reproduce by spewing their sperm and eggs into the water around them in an impregnating haze, the human equivalent of desperate yet sincere sex with someone on the other side of the Jacuzzi.

Eating a raw oyster is like stealing a kiss from the ocean: a wet, slightly salty, totally sensuous experience unbridled by any sort of fussy preparation. I’m firmly convinced that anyone who doesn’t enjoy oysters is a bad kisser, and I have centuries of documentation to back me up in this opinion. Oysters have enjoyed a reputation as an aphrodisiac for millennia. Now that I am well past the salad stage of life and forging steadily past dessert, I firmly intend to keep oysters a mainstay between courses, and, God willing, as my cordial.

I still like oysters with a dab of tart, horseradish-y cocktail sauce, but I also enjoy a lighter sauce that’s a bit more in tune with the sublime texture of the animal as it comes–quivering in its nakedness–to my lips.

Mignonette Sauce

Combine 2/3 cup wine vinegar, a small, finely-minced shallot, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and a tablespoon each freshly-ground black pepper and minced parsley.  Bottle, refrigerate, and shake well before dribbling over freshly-shucked oysters.

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Jesse Yancy, a native Mississippian and a graduate of the University of Mississippi, is a writer, gardener, and editor living in Raymond. Yancy publishes articles about food, history, and literature on his blog, Mississippi Sideboard.