August 26, 2020 • 50 mins
Oysters were one of humanity's first foods, and they've remained ragingly popular ever since. In this classic episode, Anney and Lauren dive into the biology and bloody history (piracy! murder!) behind oysters.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we
have a classic episode for you about oysters, one of
my very very favorite foods. Oh me too, Me too, Annie.
Have you gotten to eat any oysters since this entire
shutdown thing? Oh? Yes, I have. And I actually I
(00:30):
was very concerned about it because it is one of
my favorites and I just thought, you know, there's no
way I can get delivery oysters, so I don't think
that would work. But I was discussing it with our
good friend and co worker Ramsey, who's been on this show,
and he made sure he went and bought some at
your decap farmer's market, okay, And we had a socially
(00:51):
distanced oyster hang out and it was lovely and I
loved it so much that I had a socially distance
bachelate party, which was very interesting a couple of weeks ago,
and I got some oysters and they were so impressed
with me because I had to check them myself, which
is varying degrees of difficult, but it's not really that impressive,
(01:15):
but they were very impressed. They've never seen it before
and I was like, yeah, but then some of them
were so hard I had to look up a YouTube
tutorial about what to do with a difficult oyster. Surprisingly,
they are a lot of tips. So oh no, I
I bet. I mean people enjoy an oyster um. They
come in their own protective casing. So yeah, sometimes you
(01:36):
have to sometimes you need help. It's okay to need help,
It's true. Oh yeah, and I I know I've said
it before, but I do feel that chucking can be
a very dangerous activity, especially for someone clumsy like me.
There's an alcohol involved. Yeah. Yeah, we we go into
that a little bit towards the end of this of
this art classic oyster episode UM, because I still have
(01:59):
to this day, or shocked one myself, because I always
feel like I'm like, by the time, yeah, by the
time oysters come out, I'm like, I'm like, I have
had at least one alcoholic unity and you're giving me
like a knife. No, and not only that, oysters can have,
you know, like barnacle they yes, but that is one
(02:24):
tip I found is to use like a rag or
something to hold. Yeah, so you know, I'm stepping up
in the world of oyster checking. Slowly, but I'm actually
planning on getting some more soon again. Cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I was. I was reading there's all of these like
oyster mail order services, um, a bunch of places here
(02:44):
in Atlanta anyway that do serve oysters are doing like
like we'll just we'll just deliver you a bucket of oysters,
like you figure out what to do with it kind
of situations. Yeah, um, I recommend it. I mean it
is endeavor. Maybe maybe this will be the thing that
gets me to check my own oysters. Maybe this is
(03:06):
time for you lining yes, yes, we could do a
socially distanced oyster hang out. Oh can we go? I
want that so much? Okay, all right, we need some oysters.
We need some absentthe and hot sauce and oh yeah
yeah lemon juice. Yeah okay, oh no, now I want
(03:30):
this right now. I know. But Annie, it is only
eleven am. That's perfect oyster time, it is, you know,
you're right? Um? And yes, so speaking of we did
we did this oyster episode back in September of um, which,
by our current reckoning is like nine years ago. Yeah,
(03:53):
no one was even alive then. Um. As the old
answer joke goes yeah, the episode was called The World
Is Your Oyster. We really need to catalog all these
all the titles that were never were I don't know.
I'm always like, oh, yeah, I bet I had fifty
seven title ideas for this. I still have an archive
(04:18):
of all of our old email chains, so I mean
I would have to go searching to find it. But hmm, yeah, yes,
I mean there is time. I don't know if that's
the best way to spend it, but I don't know
that I'm spending it the best I can anyway. So oh,
(04:39):
true enough, yes, well, yes, so we are going to
let former Annie and Lauren take it away. Hello, and well,
(05:00):
come to food stuff. I'm Annie Reeves and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum,
and today we are talking about oysters. Shucks, oh, right away,
And there's so much to talk about, so we're going
to dive right in. So an article I read on
MPR called oysters the sea's version of fine wine. And
that's partially because the flavor of them is kind of
(05:21):
determined by the water they're in. And it's called m
are Wow, like there are for wine, but with water
and oysters. Yeah, the flavors that you get from oysters
come from the the salts and minerals in the water
where they grow, and from what they eat. But oysters,
what are they? I don't know. Why don't you tell me?
I'm gonna so. Yeah, oysters are bi valve that means
(05:44):
two shelled mollusk and they live in shallow salt water.
They are related to the oysters that make pearls that
are used in jewelry and other decorations and food. Oysters
can make pearls. But but they're too they're two different species.
I see. And oysters are filter feeders That means that
they suck in water and strain out like plankton and
algae and bacteria and and we particles of planted animal
(06:07):
matter for consumption. They grow their shells by taking in
calcium carbonate from the water around them and kind of
forming it up into micro structures that they add layers too.
Over time, calcium carbonate particles get into water when certain
types of rock or old oyster shells erode. Those shells
a k. A valves, the by valve by shell thing. Yeah,
(06:30):
the shell where the oyster sits, it's called the left valve.
I don't know why that's it is Um, it's the
longer and rounder of the two, and the right valve
and contrast is shorter and flatter and acts sort of
like a lid. Um. They're hinged with a ligament, and
the oyster can keep the shell closed with it with
a a ductor muscle, which which is a really strong
little muscle. It's like they're one single muscle that they've
(06:51):
got basically, uh for for stuff other than like pumping
their blood, which is an important thing to do as well,
I suppose. Um. But yeah, this adductor muscle. Um, if
you've ever seen an oyster in its shell, the deductor
muscle is the is the tough circular bit that's more
firmly attached to the shell than the rest of the oyster.
Oh yes, yeah, I mean I've eaten many an oyster
in my day, so I know exactly what you're talking about. Um.
(07:15):
Oh h well, while we're here, Um, oysters are basically
still alive when the when we eat them raw or
when we start cooking them. Uh, go ahead and take
a second to feel bad about that if you weren't aware.
I know I did. That's heavy stuff because I also
have eaten a lot of oysters in my time, and
suddenly the Walverus and the Carpenter's just it's thrown into
(07:37):
a whole new horrific light. It was already bad, but
this is like the gritty d C reboot, like exactly
when you know that they're still alive. But okay, um,
the reason that we do this is not that humans
are terrible monsters. Um, well we might be, but not
about this. It's a Oysters can harbor some really pretty
nasty bacteria after they die, so you walk to eat
(08:00):
them as fresh as possible, which in this case means
as close to living as possible. And I mentioned this
here because you can tell a healthy, live oyster from
a sick or a dead one because that a ductor
muscle stops working and their shell will crack up an
all on its own. If it makes you feel any better.
They don't have like a central nervous system or anything
like that. So oh yeah, I mean, I guess, I
(08:25):
guess a tiny bit. Uh. They're they're real tasty though,
but so um. In order for oysters to grow to
a point where you can eat them and feel bad
about it later, first an adult oyster has to reproduce
by sending their their sperm or their eggs out into
the water to find each other. Oh romantic, is it? No? No,
(08:46):
not at all. Um. And then the wee baby oyster
larva that that result from from those watery unions, um,
spend a few weeks swimming around and eating stuff, um,
which seems like a pretty good life. H. Eventually, the
weight of their developing shell makes them sink down to
the sea floor, upon which they kind of find a
place to settle down. Um. Meanwhile, they've grown a foot
(09:10):
to help them crawl to a good spot, which they
do um and and and a good spot is someplace
it's hard and solid with a good water current running
across it. And then they anchor to that reabsorbed their foot,
and and move into and move into their kind of
teenage stage what we're upon. They are called spats since
(09:30):
they have different organs at all of these different stages.
Oysters growth to maturity is considered a metamorphosis, like like
a butterfly in reverse. Sure, yeah, I have to say
it was not expecting the phrase reabsorbed their foot. It's
a good one, it is. Yeah. At this point they
take another three or four years to reach maturity. They're
(09:50):
considered tastiest when they're eaten before the age of five,
specifically right before winter, when they've stored up some fat
for the cold months, so like October September kind of
kind of area. But they can live up to thirty
to fifty years in the wild. Yeah, stuff, man, I
this this is an episode where I learned a lot
and I'm really excited about most of it in slightly
(10:10):
horrifying ways. So all of this definitely happens on its
own in nature. And you can harvest wild oysters depending
on the laws in your area and whether or not
you have a hammer that you feel like going out
into the water and you know, pounding off some oysters with.
But you can also farm them, and oyster farmers all
work a little bit differently depending on their local conditions,
(10:32):
but but generally the process is, you know, you select
a few oysters with good looking shells as breeders, set
up tanks that are ideal for spawning, move the resulting
dust sized like dust particle sized larva into hatchery tanks.
Then in a couple of weeks, move the pepper flake
sized babies into these screened in boxes and open water
called upwellers. Then move the spat ready quarter inch kiddos
(10:56):
into nursery cages. And then finally, when when when the
little buggers are a couple inches long, you just scatter
them free range a little bit out from the shoreline
and let them let them settle in. And moving them
around like this at all of their different growth stages
lets you control that the temperature, the salinity, the flow
of water, and exposure to to all kinds of different
nutrients at their various stages of growth. It also encourages
(11:19):
them to develop the ideal shell shape, which is that
the left valve should be should be deep and very
rounded to allow for a good bodily growth. And and
also these methods make it easier to harvest the oysters later.
They're not going to be as firmly attached to the
bottom of the of the water surface or the bottom
of the stuff that the water is on top of.
(11:40):
A wild oysters, by the way, usually root themselves to
the shells of other oysters because that's a really easy
way to get calcium carbonate out of the water. Over time,
this winds up creating these vast reefs of oyster shells
that are really great for the environment. They provide structures
for other aquatic critters to to live in and around. Uh.
They filter and clarify the water, like one to eight
(12:03):
gallons of water per hour per oyster. Yeah um. As
they suck it into, you know, breathe and find food.
And they even prevent shoreline erosion by acting as wave breakers.
So giant reefs of oysters. If you've never seen an
image of this, go stop what you're doing. I mean,
unless you're like driving or something, don't do that. Go
(12:24):
go look it up and then come back. Yes, it's
pretty incredible. I feel like we've become a marine biology
podcast all of a sudden. It's it's okay. But bring
us back to to say us back to some kind
of financial number. Okay, here we go. In the US
produced an estimated forty four million pounds of oyster meat,
(12:44):
with Louisiana being the largest producer. That same year, the
U s oyster industry made something like one point six
million a year hoof yeah um. And in the US
we ate about two point five billion oysters. Eighty five
percent of those came from the Atlantic coast. Yeah. So
(13:05):
that's kind of the state of where we are and
what oysters are so let's look at how we got here.
But first let's take a quick break for a word
from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor. Yes, oh,
(13:29):
and I wanted to mention before we get deep into
this history here that uh, most of most of our
our research was based in European and American uh culture
and a history of oysters, because that's where we live
and that's what we were able to find. Perhaps in
the future will have an opportunity to to go into
some of the history from the the Asian side of things,
(13:52):
the Eastern side of things, But but for now, let's
hear mostly about the West. So eighteen century satirist Jonathan
Swift wrote he was a bold man that first ate
an oyster. True, but actually, according to food timeline dot org,
people have been eating oysters since the dawn of humanity forwards.
That's a quote. Food historians think this is because oysters
(14:14):
are relatively easy to collect and preserve, they're versatile, and
they're nurshing. I'm sure the fact that you could eat
them raw was a big selling point in the earliest
days of eating things as well. Yeah, and also you
could use the shells for spoons, so practical, Yeah, good tools.
We can't pin down exactly when ancient humans first started
cultivating oysters, but in two thousand seven, a group of
(14:37):
scientists found one seventy four thousand year old evidence of
humans enjoying shellfish dinners in South Africa. Shell fish is
such a fun word to shell shellfish. Archaeologists have discovered
ancient middens and these are like big shell heaps dating
back to two thousand BC along the coast of Japan,
(14:58):
and ten thousand year old mi's have been found along
Australia's coastline. Yeah, middens dating back to one thousand years
can be found along the east and west coast of
North America. Yes, and going back to thousand years we
have evidence of the Romans, who were like huge oyster
fans called big into It oh Many, collecting oyster seed
(15:19):
growth near the mouth of the Adriatic Sea and bringing
them back to Italy for growth. They did this by
um moving tiny little oysters with twigs and placing them
somewhere calmer with higher salinity, and this resulted in a
fatter taste you're in product. And the Romans weren't the
only ones doing this either. The Japanese used bamboo to
do the same thing, and the Greeks used pieces of pottery. Uh.
(15:43):
Side note here about the Greeks and oysters that the
Greeks used oyster shells and part of their democratic process
for for for a little while in ancient athens Um
circa Fo b c. If there's like someone that you
thought was really detrimental to society hanging out, you could
write their name on on a flat piece of oyster
shell called an ostracon, and if that person's name turned
(16:06):
up often enough on these ostracons, then then they'd be
kicked out of town for ten years. Ten years, ted years.
Oh my goodness, baby, nice to or fellow neighbors. This
is where we get the word ostracized from. That's so great.
Eventually they switched from shells to bits of pottery for
ease of use, but the name stuck. I love it.
(16:29):
They're so useful, these oyster shells, they really are. The
Romans getting back to them. They imported oysters from all
over the Mediterranean and the European coast wherever they could
find them. Really, they just were so in love um.
And there's evidence of the Romans importing British oysters from Kent,
which means they must have been preserving are brining them
(16:49):
so that they'd survived the journey. Yeah. I think pickled
oysters were a really big thing for a very long time.
I've never had one pickled. I haven't either. It's also
probably important to note that these they were eating um
much thinner. The oysters they were eating were much thinner
than the ones we know now, just because uh, they
(17:11):
didn't have all the they didn't have all the knowledge
of the techniques of how to get them to be
so plump and fat. Anyway, it was around this time
that writers like Pliny Are Good Buddy and the poet
Assnios wrote just tons and tons about different oysters from
different regions, comparing and contrasting their their qualities and their flavors.
And it was also around us this time that the
(17:32):
whole oysters are an aphrodisiac thing popped up in Greek mythology.
The goddess of love, Aphrodite, sprung out of an oyster
shell and moments later gave birth to arrows that startling moments.
Thus the word aphrodisiac. Yeah, and people believed it to
Casanova famous eighteenth century Love or movers Shaker allegedly would
(17:56):
eat around fifty for breakfast with the oysters. Uh, to
talk about the breakfast of champions, and we're going to
talk about more of the actual science of that or
lack thereof the aphrodisa thing, not the goddess of love thing.
Oh yeah, yeah later. Yes, by the time of their
heyday and Roman civilization, you showed off just how much
money you had by stuffing as many oysters in your
(18:19):
face as quickly as possible. This was especially the case
for the inland elete, since the cost of transport drove
up the cost of oysters. Yeah. But in places coast
of water like London, oysters were plentiful, very popular, and
on the whole inexpensive. Yes. To prevent spoilage, oysters were
(18:40):
often fried and enjoyed immediately after harvest. Oh that sounds
so good. I'm so glad that people have been frying
them forever to that's that's terrific. I know. Roman entrepreneur
Sergius Rata looked to profit off of his countryman's love
of oysters, and he did so by making local oyster
beds that were fed into by these animals and dams
(19:00):
he created so you can control the flow of seawater,
and he then touted his water source as home to
the tastiest oysters. Folks were blown away by this, like
people came to study it, and then he went on
to invent heated swimming pools. So, yeah, we have this
fellow and oysters to thank for that. Oh my goodness. Okay, yeah, yeah,
(19:24):
that's that's one of the that's basically the first time
in in a in western civilization anyway that we have
a solid record of someone really doing the oyster farming
thing and doing it successfully. Right. The French were also
in on this oyster game, and their coastline boasted many
natural oyster beds. Yeah, by the time of the Roman
occupation in fourth century CE, poet Osnos his description of
(19:48):
the technical aspect of oyster farming in France, which is
not exactly what we have to David similar, it was
so detailed and advanced for the time at least that
it most likely had been practiced for quite a while.
And like, like we kind of mentioned earlier, oyster shells
had a lot of uses because they have lime, they
were ground up and used in cement or as fertilizer.
(20:10):
Some of the limestone used to build towns along the
south coast of France existed thanks to millennia oyster populations,
fossilizing and jumping way ahead. In Australia around about the
eighteen sixties, the use of oyster shells and cement production
led to a major depletion of the oyster beds, so
that the government had to step in and set up
cultivation practices based off what the French were doing. Yeah,
(20:35):
oysters enjoyed this huge popularity in Paris during the sixteen hundreds.
There may have been over two thousand oyster sellers there
during the reign of Louis. As they are today, Folks
ate oysters either cooked or raw, and when eating raw,
usually with a bit of lemon, juice or vinegar. However,
Alexandre duma Uh, famous author of Count of Monte Cristo
(20:56):
and other other things, wrote that quote the re connoisseurs
swallow them without lemon, vinegar, pepper, or anything else, just
straight up, straight up. Recipes for cooked oysters around that
time in France included oyster stews and fritters and broth
made by not quite boiling oysters to be used in
basically anything and or everything which sounds delicious. Um. Our
(21:20):
buddy Francois Pierre Lavarenne wrote in his book Liquis ineur
Francois that you should open up your oysters and save
the nicest to be eaten raw, and then take the rest,
add a butter, bread crumbs and a sprinkle of nutmeg,
and then roast them in their shells on an iron griddle.
And now that I've read that, I really can't stop
thinking about it. I want it so much. That sounds
so good. Oh um. There's a legend that a steward
(21:45):
to the Royal House of Conde, a man by the
name of Attel, was once in charge of feeding Louis
the fourteenth and his traveling party, And by traveling party,
I mean like five thousand people. And the pressure was
so great that when a mint of oysters from the
coast failed to arrive on time, Attel committed suicide by
falling on his own sword rather than face the wrath
(22:07):
of the bougie aristocracy. They were serious about their oysters,
very very serious. Okay, wow. Moving on to North America.
Before Columbus arrived, Columbus again, Native American women harvested and
(22:28):
prepared oysters, sometimes preserving them to last through the winter.
And when the Dutch first colonized what was then New
Amsterdam what we know today as New York City in
the six hundreds, they discovered just so many oyster vs.
Oh yeah. Some biologists estimate that over half of the
world's oyster population may have once lived in New York Harbard,
(22:51):
covering twenty two thousand acres over half. And this meant
that they were cheaper than pretty much all other livestock,
and that meant that people ate a lot of them.
You could get them from street vendors. The oyster shells
were used to pay pearl street and the foundations of
buildings um To prevent over harvesting, there were rules put
(23:12):
in place about when and where you could harvest oysters,
but at one point in the eighteenth century, the diet
of the poor living in cities was pretty much just
bread and oysters. The average New Yorker had two oyster
based meals a week. Wow, I'll ask. Those regulations they
put in place didn't work, and today they're pretty much
(23:33):
extinct from New York Harbor. But there is a pretty serious,
concerted effort to bring them back to boost the oyster population. Yeah,
perhaps not as big as it once was, no, Yeah,
but yeah, revitalize it a bit. And New York is
also thought to be where the first oysters were canned
in eighteen nineteen, and it is also also most likely
(23:55):
the birthplace of the oyster alcohol pairing. Yeah. From New
York taverns pairing oysters with booze spread eventually arriving to
New Orleans, which was home to much of America's absentthe
yes and the discovery of the absent oyster combo followed
soon after, and of course that the French immigrants to
New Orleans would have brought with them their their appreciation
(24:16):
for oysters. Yes. Um. And Charles McKay's book Life Liberty
in America, he wrote, the rich consume oysters and champagne.
The poorer classes consume oysters and large beer. And that
is one of the principal social differences between the two
sections of the community, which I kind of love. Yeah,
(24:40):
but I mean today we still like, there's a restaurant
indicator near Atlanta that does oysters and absencee and oysters
and champagne. Oysters and beer still do it? I think
I've had all of those combinations. In fact, I believe
I have as well. None of them would none of
them suck. No, They're all pretty pretty solid. Oysters weren't
(25:01):
just big in New York. The U s went through
something called the oyster craze in the mid to late
eighteen hundreds. During peak production from eighteen eighty to nineteen ten,
the US produced one hundred sixty million pounds a year,
more than all other countries put together. By the nineteenth century,
(25:22):
these things called oyster saloon started popping up where you
could indulge on some fresh oysters, like real quick. And
these might have been some of America's first restaurants, like
outside of inns. Yeah, And they were marked by these
big circular red and white signs and you could get
It was a go to lunch option for working men
(25:43):
in coastal cities, but it was also frequented by politicians.
New York City had eight dt and some even had
curtain boots for women. The ladies get some oysters. I know,
women in public. Oh my goodness, La La. You could
(26:03):
get oysters pretty much anyway you wanted. You could get
them stewed, scout fried in a pie, and soup and
patties in the fall, and I love this. Some people
would mix some damp sea sand with some corn meal
in a corner in their cellar and barry oysters in
there so they wouldn't run out in the winter, and
they'd water this little oyster bed twice a week or
(26:24):
so like a plant. And when you wanted some oysters,
you just went digging in there. And they were called
cellar oysters. They were popular and things like oyster pie
or stew. Since they weren't as fresh and no host
worked their salt would neglect to have these luscious bivalves,
as they were called, and you could serve them. Around
(26:45):
this time, ultra fancy oyster plates started coming out purchase. Yeah.
The hundreds is also where we get oyster crackers from
um and no they are not made with oysters. They
were They were served with oyster stews in New England.
And you know they slightly resemble oyster with their kind
of circular shape that consists of two rounded sides top
and bottom that can crack apart from one another. Yeah,
(27:06):
I see it. Yeah. This crazy demand for oysters also
resulted in the Oyster Wars, a series of violent skirmishes
between oyster pirates and oystermen operating in the Chesapeake Bay
and Potomac River from sixty five to nineteen fifty nine.
What that is pretty recent. That's almost a hundred years
(27:29):
of oyster piracy. Also oyster piracy. I know, there's so
many exclamation points in that outline the well deserved the
oysters from this area. They grew to be up to
a foot long. Yeah, they were very plentiful. Ships would
sometimes run a ground on them, goodness, and records exist
(27:50):
of them being enjoyed by John Smith, and they were
a favorite of George Washington. As the early eighteen hundreds
saw depletion of New England's oysters, boats from north started
coming further and further south looking for some oysters, and
the locals didn't like that. Both Virginia and Maryland passed
laws that made oyster fishing illegal for non residents. Baltimore
(28:14):
became the hub of oyster canning and shipping. And I
think we've said before just canning in general. Um, first
with the oyster line that's what it was called, to Ohio,
and then expanding out so that Chesapeake Bay oysters could
be enjoyed pretty much anywhere in the US. As technology develops,
and it was discovered that if you steamed them, um,
(28:35):
it's sped up the shucking process, more and more were
canned and shipped. Seventeen million bushels of Chesapeake oysters had
been harvested by eighteen seventy five, and by the production
peak of the eighteen eighties, twenty million bushels of Chesapeake
oysters were being harvested a year. Yeah, and there were
two main ways used to harvest oysters, be hand using
(29:00):
wooden tongs to lift the catch out of the water,
or by dredging. Maryland only permitted dredging in deep waters,
but of course the dredgers didn't always abide, and this
sometimes resulted in gunfights. Oh you know, oyster gunfights. Absolutely,
that seems like the best way to resolve the situation.
(29:21):
Not helping things at all was the not so well
defined border between Maryland and Virginia. So Virginia oorshermen would
come into Maryland's waters looking for oysters, yeah, thinking they
had a claim to them, and Maryland oystermen were not
cool with that. Things got so bad that in eighteen
sixty eight, the Maryland Oyster Police Force was formed Oyster
(29:42):
Police Force. They only had one steamboat for that whole area, though,
so they were they were pretty limited in what they
could accomplish. By the nineteen twenties, oyster production in the
area dropped to three million bushels a year, which is
pretty substantial um and the discovery of a new oyster
bed and the Potomac in the nineteen forties reunited the
(30:05):
Oyster Wars. Yeah, with Virginia oyster pirates and dredgers called
the Mosquito Fleet getting into chases and gunfights with the
oryster police. Why have I never seen a big action
movie about this? I mean, come on, Hollywood, get on it. Yeah,
Like you could do special screenings and in places with
(30:25):
oysters for dinner. It would be It would be such
a hit. Get it together, Come on. All of this
came to a head in n when Virginian Berkeley muse
what a name, went dredging for some Maryland oysters was
spotted by the oyster police and shot while attempting to flee.
(30:45):
He led to death on his boat, and the two
states involved past some legislation that finally brought an end
to the orster Wars. Yes for further listening, our sister
podcast stuff you missed in history class as a whole
episode on this. Yeah. Meanwhile, over in Europe there were
(31:06):
other oyster troubles to contend with. Native oysters, called flat
or European oysters were susceptible to a lot of parasites
and and other species would become invasive, particularly Portuguese oysters,
which had actually stowed away from India as barnacles on
trading ships. You know, the Portuguese ships would arrive home
and they would shuck the barnacles off, which were oysters,
(31:27):
and then the oysters would just be like, Oh, this
is chill to set up shop here, this is our
new home. Yeah. Um. A series of laws and livestock
diseases affected oyster populations of both types, though, and eventually
a whole other species had to be imported from Japan
in order to keep numbers up. And apart from you know,
(31:48):
the wars, in the US did suffer some other setbacks,
the first being related to the pure food hysteria of
the early nineteen hundreds. That's it was called. People started
to link outbreaks of typhoid and g I disorders to oysters.
Newspapers ran sensationalist headlines and stories about this connection pretty frequently,
(32:12):
so people started switching to more expensive beef. Yeah, and
kind of side note. In nineteen o seven, oyster grower
Henry c Row formed the Oyster Growers and Dealers of
North America to help better the oyster's image, with little success.
But this organization later renamed itself the Shellfish Institute of
(32:33):
North America and is one of America's oldest trade associations. Yeah. Anyway,
getting back to the pure food hysteria, tougher oyster packing
and handling rules were introduced in nineteen o nine, which
increased operating cost. Several people, mostly in Chicago, got typhoid
after eating oysters, and some of them died. Um, and
(32:56):
the oyster demand dropped fifty to eighty per cent. What Yeah,
it was called quote the greatest disaster, which ever befell
the industry. Goodness, very dark times for oysters, and speaking
of prohibition didn't help either, since alcohol and oysters go
together like birds of a feather, and a lot of
(33:18):
places where oysters were enjoyed got shut down because they
had alcohol. Yeah. And then in the nineteen fifties, a
new disease called ms X decimated oyster beds and Delaware
and Chesapeake Bay. We're talking loss. Yeah, these problems persisted,
not quite on that scale, all the way up to
(33:40):
the mid nineteen nineties. Yeah. And another problem. I just
found this very surprising starfish our oyster predators. Yeah, they
love an oyster. Yeah. Some fishermen you see things called
oyster mops to collect starfish and drop them into a
tub of boiling water to kill the Yeah. That's a
(34:02):
that's a very ultimate answer to that problem. Okay. Starfish,
by the way, are such good oyster predators. Uh, they
produce a paralyzing agent that once they've pride opened the
oyster's shell with their with their thick media arms, they
squirt this paralyzing agent in at the oyster so that
it can't use it's it's a ductor muscle to close
(34:22):
the shell up again. And then they then they squirt
their their stomach, their their stomach out through their mouth
and they digest the oyster in its shell. I saw
some videos of this on YouTube, and it was both
horrifying and impressive. As much of nature is absolutely in
(34:45):
the e p A started a clean up effort in
chess Peake Bay that helped restore consumer confidence in oyster
consumption safety. The program is ongoing, um, but the new
proposed budget would do away with it. Virginia sold sixteen
million dollars of oysters and they have a Virginia oyster
trail like a wine trail. What I want to do that? Okay,
(35:09):
al right, field trip by another problem, The Gulf oyster
industry took a huge hit in with the BP oil spill,
but it started to bounce back. In fact, the South
traditionally has been unable or they have a difficult time
selling their oysters because they grow in these really big clusters,
so you can't sell like individual oysters. Yeah, and the
(35:32):
adoption of aquacultures and hatcheries in the region has changed that.
And we're hopefully going to visit one of these. It's
gonna be pretty big for the Southern oyster industry. Yeah. Um.
Random fact Murder Point oysters are so named because one
guy killed another guy in an oyster territory dispute where
these oysters are formed. I just thought that was interesting. Okay,
(35:56):
so much so much murder in this oyster episode. Who knew? Huh? Well,
that is oyster history in the shell, some kind of
pun there. Yeah, so let's talk about some oyster science.
But first let's pause for another quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor. Yes, okay, So,
(36:27):
so science and health and weather. Oysters are an aphrodisiac h. First, nutrition,
oysters are high in protein, good fats, iron, calcium, a
few other vitamins and minerals, and they're really pretty good
for you. They're feeling without being too heavy. Uh, eat
more oysters? Yeah? Okay. However, if you're immunocompromised or have
a liver disease, you probably shouldn't eat them raw due
(36:50):
to danger of infection with a few types of bacteria
that can cause serious problems in humans. Um that they're
in the same genus as A as a cholera. Um,
it's the Vibrio genus. Yes. Uh, Well, related to that,
is it actually dangerous to eat oysters in month that
don't contain the letter are in their name. I have
never heard this before, and now I'm seeing it all
(37:12):
over like just randomly. Yeah, it's probably because I've been
researching oysters. That could be that could be absolutely what
it is. Yes, it's an old saying and there is
a little bit of truth to it in the northern
hemisphere at any rate, because months without the letter are
are May, June, July, and August, which are the height
of summer, and these potentially dangerous Fibrio bacteria thrive in
(37:35):
warmer weather. So there is a slightly higher risk of
infection when you eat raw oysters during the summer months,
especially if they're from warmer areas like the Gulf of Mexico.
But infection is pretty rare. According to the CDC, vibe
vibriosis causes about eighty thousand illnesses and a hundred deaths
every year in the United States, which is nothing compared
to like say, salmonella, which causes one point two million
(37:58):
illnesses and four fifty deaths every year. So don't be
too scared, but do do use your best judgment along
the aphrodisiac lines. Now that I've talked about the terrifying
disease lines. Um, So there's no evidence that oysters are
in aphrodisia. What And I know you've heard this science
news story from like a decade ago that said that
(38:20):
there was there was evidence along those lines, um, which
was a case of poor science journalism. Oh no, that
never happens never ever, which means our jobs are done. Yeah,
we can all go home, goodbye. Oh no, okay, so
so so what happened in this particular case was there
was an undergraduate study into the chemical makeup of muscles,
which are of course related to oysters, UM, where the
(38:41):
researchers found this amino acid called D S partic I
think I'm saying that right, I'm going to move forward
um and that amano acid has been found to increase
the levels of sex hormones in lab rats. But they
did not test oysters. They did not test anything in humans. However,
the funny thing about rumored aphrodisiacs is that they're really
(39:02):
placebo compatible, which means that if you believe that they're
going to work, it's basically a coin flip of a
chance that they'll totally work. I feel like, yeah, if
you want something to work in that situation, they're already
kind of You're right there, you're already kind of there. Yeah.
So so much of so much of an arousal is
(39:23):
is in your brain that yeah, if you if you're
into it, I mean, I mean, eats some oysters and
have fun. Oh yeah. But the signs wise and oh,
back to scary things. Okay, so so so pollution. Oysters
are bottom feeders in shallow areas, which means that they're
usually right by an ocean coastline, right along with any
(39:43):
pollutants that dump out from local waterways or the groundwater. Plus,
like lots of sea creatures, they can wind up storing
harmful stuff in their bodies, and researchers have found traces
of stuff like mercury, arsenic, and human medications in oysters.
But but again, probably not enough to worry about unless
you're either immuno compromised or eating like a lot of oysters.
(40:08):
How much is a lot? Which I mean I mean
if you binge on like a couple dozen every once
in a while, I think you're fine. I've been known
to get into some trouble at Oyster Fest if you
if like Casanova, you're eating like fifty every morning, then
I might cut that out. I can't afford that. So excellent,
Well good, I'm gonna be fine. Oh, back back to
(40:33):
back to sexuality though, uh, oysters. Oysters reproductive lives are
really interesting. I mean from from a human perspective anyway,
I mean, for them, it's normal everyday kind of stuff. Uh.
Oysters change their sex at least once during their lifetimes,
at least once they're hermaphroditic. They tend to be male
and produced sperm early on in their lives. Um sperm
(40:55):
production requires fewer resources, and they're really busy bulking up
their shells. At that point. When they get a little
bit older, they tend to switch to female sex and
egg production, and they can switch back and forth depending
on the conditions in their environment. So I love that
you wrote bulking up the shell for the male oyster
(41:16):
like life. That's pretty great. Okay, let's talk about some
popular some popular oyster recipes. So the first one I
thought of as oysters Rockefeller and this is supposedly allegedly
New Orleans chef Jewels AlSi a tour. I wanted to
(41:40):
say it in an Italian way, but I looked up
a video and it's AlSi a tour of Antoine's restaurant.
Um supposedly lays claims to this recipe and the story
goes he created it in the original recipe is kind
of a culinary secret. Oh yeah, but it involves baking
oysters with pars a shallots, Tabasco sauce in butter, and
(42:02):
they are quite delicious if you've never had them prepared
this way. I recommend it. Pigs in a blanket. What
that's a hot dog wrapped in dough. That's what I
thought too, But apparently this used to refer to broiled
oysters wrapped in bacon. Oh my goodness, I know, going
all the way back to it also goes by the
(42:23):
name Angels on Horseback and yeah, we should try this,
yes soon. Another one. I've never heard of this oysters Kirkpatrick.
Have you heard of this lore? I have not, so
this probably first appeared on a menu sometime in the
nineteen twenties at San Francisco's Palace Hotel. According to the hotel,
it's broiled oysters topped with ketchup, bacon and green peppers,
(42:47):
sometimes with cheese. Huh. It kept popping up in search results, so,
I mean, I believe it's delicious because it's made with oysters.
Ketchup is kind of throwing me, and I love ketchup,
but I would definitely give it a go. I mean,
it's got a little bit of a vinegar component, so
I suppose that's like cocktail sauce is yeah, sure, okay, Um,
(43:10):
there's the Thanksgiving tradition of using oysters and stuffing in
New England. Oh, which of course makes perfect sense. It does.
I've never had this, but people still do it. I hear.
It goes back pretty far to the first written recipe,
appearing in a cookbook out of London called The Accomplished cook. Yeah,
(43:30):
not not with an e D on the end of accomplished,
but a T rather, just for flavor. It would make
sense that it would make the journey in North America,
and since oysters were so plentiful and popular in New England,
it would make sense that they would be out of
two stuffing. Yeah, I would like to try that as well.
Just things I want to try. Also, we can't in
(43:52):
this episode without mentioning oyster vending machines. This is a thing.
I need this in my life. It exists, but it
only existed France currently and it's twenty four seven. What
just you know, whenever you have your oyster craving, there's
a vending machine. They're kept refrigerated and restocked daily, and
(44:12):
they're sold clothed to prevent food poisoning. And they're actually
pretty inexpensive for oysters. For oysters, they cost about eight
dollars for a dozen. Oh yeah, that's a totally good
price for an oyster. So you have to shuck them yourself,
like on the street. Oh that's true. What if you
because I imagine if you're going it three am, say,
you might be a little inebriated possibly, and then you
(44:36):
get you get this, get your oyster craving, you get
your oyster at the vending machine. M there's possibility for
injury there. Chucking oysters is not the easiest thing in
the world. I've never tried it. I've watched carefully while
other people do it. It's it can be very difficult.
There's a there's definitely a method to it. You want
(44:58):
to go in right at the knuck all. But if
there's alcohol involved, that's that's the thing. Like by the
time anyone ever gets around to shucking an oyster around
me like, yeah, I feel like my time for shucking
his path. Yes, it's a limited there's a small window
when you should be doing it. Really yeah. Um oh,
and I wanted to mention that if you'd like to
(45:18):
hear more about oysters, the gas Troopod podcast has a
really great episode where they interview Rowan Jacobson, who's the
author of The Essential Oyster, and uh, I found it
enlightening and you might too. Yes, it was very enlightening.
And that brings us to the end of this classic episode.
(45:40):
I hope you enjoyed of what former and Annie Laura
had to say. Yeah, this was this was a fun one.
I was clearly hyper caffeinated, but you know that happens
to the best of us. Yeah, I mean I feel
like that's any episode roll the dice, it's likely one
of us is hyper caffeinated or undercaffeinated. Oh oh yeah, yeah,
(46:04):
and it's usually a trade off. I feel like we
I feel like we do a good job of balancing
each other out like that. Yes, you know, we try,
we try, we succeed yea, so we don't. Yeah. I
was also just really excited about like bivalves and murder um.
I mean, those are two things you get excited about
they are. Oh and speaking of murder, um, Annie, may
(46:27):
I may I plug a new show that I'm working on.
I mean a segue like, speaking of murder I picked
deserves a plug? Yes, all right, so um, so y'all
are familiar with with Aaron minky Um and his production
company Grim and Mild. They they do um Lower and
Cabinet of Curiosities, UM, a couple other shows, Yeah, and
(46:50):
they decided that they wanted to do a new show
that focuses on these dark, true, weird stories from specifically
American history. And so that is how the show American
Shadows came about. And they tapped me to narrate it
because I don't know, I've been training all my life
(47:10):
to be both very factual and sort of goth. I guess, yeah,
thank you. Um. Yeah. So it's uh, it's the reason
that I that I enjoy it is not just because
of you know, the the murder and dismemberment in etcetera, etcetera,
but also the way that the Grim and Mild writing
(47:30):
and research team is constructing these stories is to to
bring to light these stories where you know, it was
a time and place where where stuff kind of sucked. Um,
and it probably sucked specifically for a couple of people
really intensely. Um. But at the end of the proverbial day, uh,
(47:50):
you know, truth and justice prevail, and so those are
really nice stories to hear about right now, Yes, yes, true,
and if you couldn't tell listeners, we are big fans
of the macawbro. You have to say it in that
specific voice. I'm pretty sure you do and overpronounced the R. Yes,
(48:10):
that's in the dictionary. But yeah, we're big fans of
that and big fans of Lauren. Obviously I'm not always
a big fan of Lauren. But but but thank you, well,
I am here to fill in the gap. There you go. Yes, yes,
um so highly yeah, highly recommend checking that out listeners. Yeah, yeah,
(48:34):
it's it's a it's fun to do and you get
to you get to hear my serious voice. And also
it has provided a lot of very funny instances where
we into recording, Lauren will just say, Okay, I gotta
go talk about murder, and I'm like, oh, I hope
it's for work. Oh oh. And our and our dear
(48:58):
friend Miranda, Miranda Hockey and is producing it and she's
just putting it together in really really lovely ways. Both
of us are our humans, m rand and I, who
probably over associate with Marce Layne from Adventure. So we
make a good we make a good duo. I think, yes, yes,
I would agree. Miranda is awesome. Oh gosh, yeah another man.
(49:21):
I miss all you guys. I really miss my coworkers.
I do too, coworkers and friends. Yes, um, and you
know what. We We love hearing from you listeners. Yes,
you can email us at hello at savor pod dot com. Yes,
because you're also our friends. We're also on social media.
(49:43):
You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at
savor pod, and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks, it's always towards superproducers Dylan Fagan
and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we
hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
(50:10):
H
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we
have a classic episode for you about oysters, one of
my very very favorite foods. Oh me too, Me too, Annie.
Have you gotten to eat any oysters since this entire
shutdown thing? Oh? Yes, I have. And I actually I
(00:30):
was very concerned about it because it is one of
my favorites and I just thought, you know, there's no
way I can get delivery oysters, so I don't think
that would work. But I was discussing it with our
good friend and co worker Ramsey, who's been on this show,
and he made sure he went and bought some at
your decap farmer's market, okay, And we had a socially
(00:51):
distanced oyster hang out and it was lovely and I
loved it so much that I had a socially distance
bachelate party, which was very interesting a couple of weeks ago,
and I got some oysters and they were so impressed
with me because I had to check them myself, which
is varying degrees of difficult, but it's not really that impressive,
(01:15):
but they were very impressed. They've never seen it before
and I was like, yeah, but then some of them
were so hard I had to look up a YouTube
tutorial about what to do with a difficult oyster. Surprisingly,
they are a lot of tips. So oh no, I
I bet. I mean people enjoy an oyster um. They
come in their own protective casing. So yeah, sometimes you
(01:36):
have to sometimes you need help. It's okay to need help,
It's true. Oh yeah, and I I know I've said
it before, but I do feel that chucking can be
a very dangerous activity, especially for someone clumsy like me.
There's an alcohol involved. Yeah. Yeah, we we go into
that a little bit towards the end of this of
this art classic oyster episode UM, because I still have
(01:59):
to this day, or shocked one myself, because I always
feel like I'm like, by the time, yeah, by the
time oysters come out, I'm like, I'm like, I have
had at least one alcoholic unity and you're giving me
like a knife. No, and not only that, oysters can have,
you know, like barnacle they yes, but that is one
(02:24):
tip I found is to use like a rag or
something to hold. Yeah, so you know, I'm stepping up
in the world of oyster checking. Slowly, but I'm actually
planning on getting some more soon again. Cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I was. I was reading there's all of these like
oyster mail order services, um, a bunch of places here
(02:44):
in Atlanta anyway that do serve oysters are doing like
like we'll just we'll just deliver you a bucket of oysters,
like you figure out what to do with it kind
of situations. Yeah, um, I recommend it. I mean it
is endeavor. Maybe maybe this will be the thing that
gets me to check my own oysters. Maybe this is
(03:06):
time for you lining yes, yes, we could do a
socially distanced oyster hang out. Oh can we go? I
want that so much? Okay, all right, we need some oysters.
We need some absentthe and hot sauce and oh yeah
yeah lemon juice. Yeah okay, oh no, now I want
(03:30):
this right now. I know. But Annie, it is only
eleven am. That's perfect oyster time, it is, you know,
you're right? Um? And yes, so speaking of we did
we did this oyster episode back in September of um, which,
by our current reckoning is like nine years ago. Yeah,
(03:53):
no one was even alive then. Um. As the old
answer joke goes yeah, the episode was called The World
Is Your Oyster. We really need to catalog all these
all the titles that were never were I don't know.
I'm always like, oh, yeah, I bet I had fifty
seven title ideas for this. I still have an archive
(04:18):
of all of our old email chains, so I mean
I would have to go searching to find it. But hmm, yeah, yes,
I mean there is time. I don't know if that's
the best way to spend it, but I don't know
that I'm spending it the best I can anyway. So oh,
(04:39):
true enough, yes, well, yes, so we are going to
let former Annie and Lauren take it away. Hello, and well,
(05:00):
come to food stuff. I'm Annie Reeves and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum,
and today we are talking about oysters. Shucks, oh, right away,
And there's so much to talk about, so we're going
to dive right in. So an article I read on
MPR called oysters the sea's version of fine wine. And
that's partially because the flavor of them is kind of
(05:21):
determined by the water they're in. And it's called m
are Wow, like there are for wine, but with water
and oysters. Yeah, the flavors that you get from oysters
come from the the salts and minerals in the water
where they grow, and from what they eat. But oysters,
what are they? I don't know. Why don't you tell me?
I'm gonna so. Yeah, oysters are bi valve that means
(05:44):
two shelled mollusk and they live in shallow salt water.
They are related to the oysters that make pearls that
are used in jewelry and other decorations and food. Oysters
can make pearls. But but they're too they're two different species.
I see. And oysters are filter feeders That means that
they suck in water and strain out like plankton and
algae and bacteria and and we particles of planted animal
(06:07):
matter for consumption. They grow their shells by taking in
calcium carbonate from the water around them and kind of
forming it up into micro structures that they add layers too.
Over time, calcium carbonate particles get into water when certain
types of rock or old oyster shells erode. Those shells
a k. A valves, the by valve by shell thing. Yeah,
(06:30):
the shell where the oyster sits, it's called the left valve.
I don't know why that's it is Um, it's the
longer and rounder of the two, and the right valve
and contrast is shorter and flatter and acts sort of
like a lid. Um. They're hinged with a ligament, and
the oyster can keep the shell closed with it with
a a ductor muscle, which which is a really strong
little muscle. It's like they're one single muscle that they've
(06:51):
got basically, uh for for stuff other than like pumping
their blood, which is an important thing to do as well,
I suppose. Um. But yeah, this adductor muscle. Um, if
you've ever seen an oyster in its shell, the deductor
muscle is the is the tough circular bit that's more
firmly attached to the shell than the rest of the oyster.
Oh yes, yeah, I mean I've eaten many an oyster
in my day, so I know exactly what you're talking about. Um.
(07:15):
Oh h well, while we're here, Um, oysters are basically
still alive when the when we eat them raw or
when we start cooking them. Uh, go ahead and take
a second to feel bad about that if you weren't aware.
I know I did. That's heavy stuff because I also
have eaten a lot of oysters in my time, and
suddenly the Walverus and the Carpenter's just it's thrown into
(07:37):
a whole new horrific light. It was already bad, but
this is like the gritty d C reboot, like exactly
when you know that they're still alive. But okay, um,
the reason that we do this is not that humans
are terrible monsters. Um, well we might be, but not
about this. It's a Oysters can harbor some really pretty
nasty bacteria after they die, so you walk to eat
(08:00):
them as fresh as possible, which in this case means
as close to living as possible. And I mentioned this
here because you can tell a healthy, live oyster from
a sick or a dead one because that a ductor
muscle stops working and their shell will crack up an
all on its own. If it makes you feel any better.
They don't have like a central nervous system or anything
like that. So oh yeah, I mean, I guess, I
(08:25):
guess a tiny bit. Uh. They're they're real tasty though,
but so um. In order for oysters to grow to
a point where you can eat them and feel bad
about it later, first an adult oyster has to reproduce
by sending their their sperm or their eggs out into
the water to find each other. Oh romantic, is it? No? No,
(08:46):
not at all. Um. And then the wee baby oyster
larva that that result from from those watery unions, um,
spend a few weeks swimming around and eating stuff, um,
which seems like a pretty good life. H. Eventually, the
weight of their developing shell makes them sink down to
the sea floor, upon which they kind of find a
place to settle down. Um. Meanwhile, they've grown a foot
(09:10):
to help them crawl to a good spot, which they
do um and and and a good spot is someplace
it's hard and solid with a good water current running
across it. And then they anchor to that reabsorbed their foot,
and and move into and move into their kind of
teenage stage what we're upon. They are called spats since
(09:30):
they have different organs at all of these different stages.
Oysters growth to maturity is considered a metamorphosis, like like
a butterfly in reverse. Sure, yeah, I have to say
it was not expecting the phrase reabsorbed their foot. It's
a good one, it is. Yeah. At this point they
take another three or four years to reach maturity. They're
(09:50):
considered tastiest when they're eaten before the age of five,
specifically right before winter, when they've stored up some fat
for the cold months, so like October September kind of
kind of area. But they can live up to thirty
to fifty years in the wild. Yeah, stuff, man, I
this this is an episode where I learned a lot
and I'm really excited about most of it in slightly
(10:10):
horrifying ways. So all of this definitely happens on its
own in nature. And you can harvest wild oysters depending
on the laws in your area and whether or not
you have a hammer that you feel like going out
into the water and you know, pounding off some oysters with.
But you can also farm them, and oyster farmers all
work a little bit differently depending on their local conditions,
(10:32):
but but generally the process is, you know, you select
a few oysters with good looking shells as breeders, set
up tanks that are ideal for spawning, move the resulting
dust sized like dust particle sized larva into hatchery tanks.
Then in a couple of weeks, move the pepper flake
sized babies into these screened in boxes and open water
called upwellers. Then move the spat ready quarter inch kiddos
(10:56):
into nursery cages. And then finally, when when when the
little buggers are a couple inches long, you just scatter
them free range a little bit out from the shoreline
and let them let them settle in. And moving them
around like this at all of their different growth stages
lets you control that the temperature, the salinity, the flow
of water, and exposure to to all kinds of different
nutrients at their various stages of growth. It also encourages
(11:19):
them to develop the ideal shell shape, which is that
the left valve should be should be deep and very
rounded to allow for a good bodily growth. And and
also these methods make it easier to harvest the oysters later.
They're not going to be as firmly attached to the
bottom of the of the water surface or the bottom
of the stuff that the water is on top of.
(11:40):
A wild oysters, by the way, usually root themselves to
the shells of other oysters because that's a really easy
way to get calcium carbonate out of the water. Over time,
this winds up creating these vast reefs of oyster shells
that are really great for the environment. They provide structures
for other aquatic critters to to live in and around. Uh.
They filter and clarify the water, like one to eight
(12:03):
gallons of water per hour per oyster. Yeah um. As
they suck it into, you know, breathe and find food.
And they even prevent shoreline erosion by acting as wave breakers.
So giant reefs of oysters. If you've never seen an
image of this, go stop what you're doing. I mean,
unless you're like driving or something, don't do that. Go
(12:24):
go look it up and then come back. Yes, it's
pretty incredible. I feel like we've become a marine biology
podcast all of a sudden. It's it's okay. But bring
us back to to say us back to some kind
of financial number. Okay, here we go. In the US
produced an estimated forty four million pounds of oyster meat,
(12:44):
with Louisiana being the largest producer. That same year, the
U s oyster industry made something like one point six
million a year hoof yeah um. And in the US
we ate about two point five billion oysters. Eighty five
percent of those came from the Atlantic coast. Yeah. So
(13:05):
that's kind of the state of where we are and
what oysters are so let's look at how we got here.
But first let's take a quick break for a word
from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor. Yes, oh,
(13:29):
and I wanted to mention before we get deep into
this history here that uh, most of most of our
our research was based in European and American uh culture
and a history of oysters, because that's where we live
and that's what we were able to find. Perhaps in
the future will have an opportunity to to go into
some of the history from the the Asian side of things,
(13:52):
the Eastern side of things, But but for now, let's
hear mostly about the West. So eighteen century satirist Jonathan
Swift wrote he was a bold man that first ate
an oyster. True, but actually, according to food timeline dot org,
people have been eating oysters since the dawn of humanity forwards.
That's a quote. Food historians think this is because oysters
(14:14):
are relatively easy to collect and preserve, they're versatile, and
they're nurshing. I'm sure the fact that you could eat
them raw was a big selling point in the earliest
days of eating things as well. Yeah, and also you
could use the shells for spoons, so practical, Yeah, good tools.
We can't pin down exactly when ancient humans first started
cultivating oysters, but in two thousand seven, a group of
(14:37):
scientists found one seventy four thousand year old evidence of
humans enjoying shellfish dinners in South Africa. Shell fish is
such a fun word to shell shellfish. Archaeologists have discovered
ancient middens and these are like big shell heaps dating
back to two thousand BC along the coast of Japan,
(14:58):
and ten thousand year old mi's have been found along
Australia's coastline. Yeah, middens dating back to one thousand years
can be found along the east and west coast of
North America. Yes, and going back to thousand years we
have evidence of the Romans, who were like huge oyster
fans called big into It oh Many, collecting oyster seed
(15:19):
growth near the mouth of the Adriatic Sea and bringing
them back to Italy for growth. They did this by
um moving tiny little oysters with twigs and placing them
somewhere calmer with higher salinity, and this resulted in a
fatter taste you're in product. And the Romans weren't the
only ones doing this either. The Japanese used bamboo to
do the same thing, and the Greeks used pieces of pottery. Uh.
(15:43):
Side note here about the Greeks and oysters that the
Greeks used oyster shells and part of their democratic process
for for for a little while in ancient athens Um
circa Fo b c. If there's like someone that you
thought was really detrimental to society hanging out, you could
write their name on on a flat piece of oyster
shell called an ostracon, and if that person's name turned
(16:06):
up often enough on these ostracons, then then they'd be
kicked out of town for ten years. Ten years, ted years.
Oh my goodness, baby, nice to or fellow neighbors. This
is where we get the word ostracized from. That's so great.
Eventually they switched from shells to bits of pottery for
ease of use, but the name stuck. I love it.
(16:29):
They're so useful, these oyster shells, they really are. The
Romans getting back to them. They imported oysters from all
over the Mediterranean and the European coast wherever they could
find them. Really, they just were so in love um.
And there's evidence of the Romans importing British oysters from Kent,
which means they must have been preserving are brining them
(16:49):
so that they'd survived the journey. Yeah. I think pickled
oysters were a really big thing for a very long time.
I've never had one pickled. I haven't either. It's also
probably important to note that these they were eating um
much thinner. The oysters they were eating were much thinner
than the ones we know now, just because uh, they
(17:11):
didn't have all the they didn't have all the knowledge
of the techniques of how to get them to be
so plump and fat. Anyway, it was around this time
that writers like Pliny Are Good Buddy and the poet
Assnios wrote just tons and tons about different oysters from
different regions, comparing and contrasting their their qualities and their flavors.
And it was also around us this time that the
(17:32):
whole oysters are an aphrodisiac thing popped up in Greek mythology.
The goddess of love, Aphrodite, sprung out of an oyster
shell and moments later gave birth to arrows that startling moments.
Thus the word aphrodisiac. Yeah, and people believed it to
Casanova famous eighteenth century Love or movers Shaker allegedly would
(17:56):
eat around fifty for breakfast with the oysters. Uh, to
talk about the breakfast of champions, and we're going to
talk about more of the actual science of that or
lack thereof the aphrodisa thing, not the goddess of love thing.
Oh yeah, yeah later. Yes, by the time of their
heyday and Roman civilization, you showed off just how much
money you had by stuffing as many oysters in your
(18:19):
face as quickly as possible. This was especially the case
for the inland elete, since the cost of transport drove
up the cost of oysters. Yeah. But in places coast
of water like London, oysters were plentiful, very popular, and
on the whole inexpensive. Yes. To prevent spoilage, oysters were
(18:40):
often fried and enjoyed immediately after harvest. Oh that sounds
so good. I'm so glad that people have been frying
them forever to that's that's terrific. I know. Roman entrepreneur
Sergius Rata looked to profit off of his countryman's love
of oysters, and he did so by making local oyster
beds that were fed into by these animals and dams
(19:00):
he created so you can control the flow of seawater,
and he then touted his water source as home to
the tastiest oysters. Folks were blown away by this, like
people came to study it, and then he went on
to invent heated swimming pools. So, yeah, we have this
fellow and oysters to thank for that. Oh my goodness. Okay, yeah, yeah,
(19:24):
that's that's one of the that's basically the first time
in in a in western civilization anyway that we have
a solid record of someone really doing the oyster farming
thing and doing it successfully. Right. The French were also
in on this oyster game, and their coastline boasted many
natural oyster beds. Yeah, by the time of the Roman
occupation in fourth century CE, poet Osnos his description of
(19:48):
the technical aspect of oyster farming in France, which is
not exactly what we have to David similar, it was
so detailed and advanced for the time at least that
it most likely had been practiced for quite a while.
And like, like we kind of mentioned earlier, oyster shells
had a lot of uses because they have lime, they
were ground up and used in cement or as fertilizer.
(20:10):
Some of the limestone used to build towns along the
south coast of France existed thanks to millennia oyster populations,
fossilizing and jumping way ahead. In Australia around about the
eighteen sixties, the use of oyster shells and cement production
led to a major depletion of the oyster beds, so
that the government had to step in and set up
cultivation practices based off what the French were doing. Yeah,
(20:35):
oysters enjoyed this huge popularity in Paris during the sixteen hundreds.
There may have been over two thousand oyster sellers there
during the reign of Louis. As they are today, Folks
ate oysters either cooked or raw, and when eating raw,
usually with a bit of lemon, juice or vinegar. However,
Alexandre duma Uh, famous author of Count of Monte Cristo
(20:56):
and other other things, wrote that quote the re connoisseurs
swallow them without lemon, vinegar, pepper, or anything else, just
straight up, straight up. Recipes for cooked oysters around that
time in France included oyster stews and fritters and broth
made by not quite boiling oysters to be used in
basically anything and or everything which sounds delicious. Um. Our
(21:20):
buddy Francois Pierre Lavarenne wrote in his book Liquis ineur
Francois that you should open up your oysters and save
the nicest to be eaten raw, and then take the rest,
add a butter, bread crumbs and a sprinkle of nutmeg,
and then roast them in their shells on an iron griddle.
And now that I've read that, I really can't stop
thinking about it. I want it so much. That sounds
so good. Oh um. There's a legend that a steward
(21:45):
to the Royal House of Conde, a man by the
name of Attel, was once in charge of feeding Louis
the fourteenth and his traveling party, And by traveling party,
I mean like five thousand people. And the pressure was
so great that when a mint of oysters from the
coast failed to arrive on time, Attel committed suicide by
falling on his own sword rather than face the wrath
(22:07):
of the bougie aristocracy. They were serious about their oysters,
very very serious. Okay, wow. Moving on to North America.
Before Columbus arrived, Columbus again, Native American women harvested and
(22:28):
prepared oysters, sometimes preserving them to last through the winter.
And when the Dutch first colonized what was then New
Amsterdam what we know today as New York City in
the six hundreds, they discovered just so many oyster vs.
Oh yeah. Some biologists estimate that over half of the
world's oyster population may have once lived in New York Harbard,
(22:51):
covering twenty two thousand acres over half. And this meant
that they were cheaper than pretty much all other livestock,
and that meant that people ate a lot of them.
You could get them from street vendors. The oyster shells
were used to pay pearl street and the foundations of
buildings um To prevent over harvesting, there were rules put
(23:12):
in place about when and where you could harvest oysters,
but at one point in the eighteenth century, the diet
of the poor living in cities was pretty much just
bread and oysters. The average New Yorker had two oyster
based meals a week. Wow, I'll ask. Those regulations they
put in place didn't work, and today they're pretty much
(23:33):
extinct from New York Harbor. But there is a pretty serious,
concerted effort to bring them back to boost the oyster population. Yeah,
perhaps not as big as it once was, no, Yeah,
but yeah, revitalize it a bit. And New York is
also thought to be where the first oysters were canned
in eighteen nineteen, and it is also also most likely
(23:55):
the birthplace of the oyster alcohol pairing. Yeah. From New
York taverns pairing oysters with booze spread eventually arriving to
New Orleans, which was home to much of America's absentthe
yes and the discovery of the absent oyster combo followed
soon after, and of course that the French immigrants to
New Orleans would have brought with them their their appreciation
(24:16):
for oysters. Yes. Um. And Charles McKay's book Life Liberty
in America, he wrote, the rich consume oysters and champagne.
The poorer classes consume oysters and large beer. And that
is one of the principal social differences between the two
sections of the community, which I kind of love. Yeah,
(24:40):
but I mean today we still like, there's a restaurant
indicator near Atlanta that does oysters and absencee and oysters
and champagne. Oysters and beer still do it? I think
I've had all of those combinations. In fact, I believe
I have as well. None of them would none of
them suck. No, They're all pretty pretty solid. Oysters weren't
(25:01):
just big in New York. The U s went through
something called the oyster craze in the mid to late
eighteen hundreds. During peak production from eighteen eighty to nineteen ten,
the US produced one hundred sixty million pounds a year,
more than all other countries put together. By the nineteenth century,
(25:22):
these things called oyster saloon started popping up where you
could indulge on some fresh oysters, like real quick. And
these might have been some of America's first restaurants, like
outside of inns. Yeah, And they were marked by these
big circular red and white signs and you could get
It was a go to lunch option for working men
(25:43):
in coastal cities, but it was also frequented by politicians.
New York City had eight dt and some even had
curtain boots for women. The ladies get some oysters. I know,
women in public. Oh my goodness, La La. You could
(26:03):
get oysters pretty much anyway you wanted. You could get
them stewed, scout fried in a pie, and soup and
patties in the fall, and I love this. Some people
would mix some damp sea sand with some corn meal
in a corner in their cellar and barry oysters in
there so they wouldn't run out in the winter, and
they'd water this little oyster bed twice a week or
(26:24):
so like a plant. And when you wanted some oysters,
you just went digging in there. And they were called
cellar oysters. They were popular and things like oyster pie
or stew. Since they weren't as fresh and no host
worked their salt would neglect to have these luscious bivalves,
as they were called, and you could serve them. Around
(26:45):
this time, ultra fancy oyster plates started coming out purchase. Yeah.
The hundreds is also where we get oyster crackers from
um and no they are not made with oysters. They
were They were served with oyster stews in New England.
And you know they slightly resemble oyster with their kind
of circular shape that consists of two rounded sides top
and bottom that can crack apart from one another. Yeah,
(27:06):
I see it. Yeah. This crazy demand for oysters also
resulted in the Oyster Wars, a series of violent skirmishes
between oyster pirates and oystermen operating in the Chesapeake Bay
and Potomac River from sixty five to nineteen fifty nine.
What that is pretty recent. That's almost a hundred years
(27:29):
of oyster piracy. Also oyster piracy. I know, there's so
many exclamation points in that outline the well deserved the
oysters from this area. They grew to be up to
a foot long. Yeah, they were very plentiful. Ships would
sometimes run a ground on them, goodness, and records exist
(27:50):
of them being enjoyed by John Smith, and they were
a favorite of George Washington. As the early eighteen hundreds
saw depletion of New England's oysters, boats from north started
coming further and further south looking for some oysters, and
the locals didn't like that. Both Virginia and Maryland passed
laws that made oyster fishing illegal for non residents. Baltimore
(28:14):
became the hub of oyster canning and shipping. And I
think we've said before just canning in general. Um, first
with the oyster line that's what it was called, to Ohio,
and then expanding out so that Chesapeake Bay oysters could
be enjoyed pretty much anywhere in the US. As technology develops,
and it was discovered that if you steamed them, um,
(28:35):
it's sped up the shucking process, more and more were
canned and shipped. Seventeen million bushels of Chesapeake oysters had
been harvested by eighteen seventy five, and by the production
peak of the eighteen eighties, twenty million bushels of Chesapeake
oysters were being harvested a year. Yeah, and there were
two main ways used to harvest oysters, be hand using
(29:00):
wooden tongs to lift the catch out of the water,
or by dredging. Maryland only permitted dredging in deep waters,
but of course the dredgers didn't always abide, and this
sometimes resulted in gunfights. Oh you know, oyster gunfights. Absolutely,
that seems like the best way to resolve the situation.
(29:21):
Not helping things at all was the not so well
defined border between Maryland and Virginia. So Virginia oorshermen would
come into Maryland's waters looking for oysters, yeah, thinking they
had a claim to them, and Maryland oystermen were not
cool with that. Things got so bad that in eighteen
sixty eight, the Maryland Oyster Police Force was formed Oyster
(29:42):
Police Force. They only had one steamboat for that whole area, though,
so they were they were pretty limited in what they
could accomplish. By the nineteen twenties, oyster production in the
area dropped to three million bushels a year, which is
pretty substantial um and the discovery of a new oyster
bed and the Potomac in the nineteen forties reunited the
(30:05):
Oyster Wars. Yeah, with Virginia oyster pirates and dredgers called
the Mosquito Fleet getting into chases and gunfights with the
oryster police. Why have I never seen a big action
movie about this? I mean, come on, Hollywood, get on it. Yeah,
Like you could do special screenings and in places with
(30:25):
oysters for dinner. It would be It would be such
a hit. Get it together, Come on. All of this
came to a head in n when Virginian Berkeley muse
what a name, went dredging for some Maryland oysters was
spotted by the oyster police and shot while attempting to flee.
(30:45):
He led to death on his boat, and the two
states involved past some legislation that finally brought an end
to the orster Wars. Yes for further listening, our sister
podcast stuff you missed in history class as a whole
episode on this. Yeah. Meanwhile, over in Europe there were
(31:06):
other oyster troubles to contend with. Native oysters, called flat
or European oysters were susceptible to a lot of parasites
and and other species would become invasive, particularly Portuguese oysters,
which had actually stowed away from India as barnacles on
trading ships. You know, the Portuguese ships would arrive home
and they would shuck the barnacles off, which were oysters,
(31:27):
and then the oysters would just be like, Oh, this
is chill to set up shop here, this is our
new home. Yeah. Um. A series of laws and livestock
diseases affected oyster populations of both types, though, and eventually
a whole other species had to be imported from Japan
in order to keep numbers up. And apart from you know,
(31:48):
the wars, in the US did suffer some other setbacks,
the first being related to the pure food hysteria of
the early nineteen hundreds. That's it was called. People started
to link outbreaks of typhoid and g I disorders to oysters.
Newspapers ran sensationalist headlines and stories about this connection pretty frequently,
(32:12):
so people started switching to more expensive beef. Yeah, and
kind of side note. In nineteen o seven, oyster grower
Henry c Row formed the Oyster Growers and Dealers of
North America to help better the oyster's image, with little success.
But this organization later renamed itself the Shellfish Institute of
(32:33):
North America and is one of America's oldest trade associations. Yeah. Anyway,
getting back to the pure food hysteria, tougher oyster packing
and handling rules were introduced in nineteen o nine, which
increased operating cost. Several people, mostly in Chicago, got typhoid
after eating oysters, and some of them died. Um, and
(32:56):
the oyster demand dropped fifty to eighty per cent. What Yeah,
it was called quote the greatest disaster, which ever befell
the industry. Goodness, very dark times for oysters, and speaking
of prohibition didn't help either, since alcohol and oysters go
together like birds of a feather, and a lot of
(33:18):
places where oysters were enjoyed got shut down because they
had alcohol. Yeah. And then in the nineteen fifties, a
new disease called ms X decimated oyster beds and Delaware
and Chesapeake Bay. We're talking loss. Yeah, these problems persisted,
not quite on that scale, all the way up to
(33:40):
the mid nineteen nineties. Yeah. And another problem. I just
found this very surprising starfish our oyster predators. Yeah, they
love an oyster. Yeah. Some fishermen you see things called
oyster mops to collect starfish and drop them into a
tub of boiling water to kill the Yeah. That's a
(34:02):
that's a very ultimate answer to that problem. Okay. Starfish,
by the way, are such good oyster predators. Uh, they
produce a paralyzing agent that once they've pride opened the
oyster's shell with their with their thick media arms, they
squirt this paralyzing agent in at the oyster so that
it can't use it's it's a ductor muscle to close
(34:22):
the shell up again. And then they then they squirt
their their stomach, their their stomach out through their mouth
and they digest the oyster in its shell. I saw
some videos of this on YouTube, and it was both
horrifying and impressive. As much of nature is absolutely in
(34:45):
the e p A started a clean up effort in
chess Peake Bay that helped restore consumer confidence in oyster
consumption safety. The program is ongoing, um, but the new
proposed budget would do away with it. Virginia sold sixteen
million dollars of oysters and they have a Virginia oyster
trail like a wine trail. What I want to do that? Okay,
(35:09):
al right, field trip by another problem, The Gulf oyster
industry took a huge hit in with the BP oil spill,
but it started to bounce back. In fact, the South
traditionally has been unable or they have a difficult time
selling their oysters because they grow in these really big clusters,
so you can't sell like individual oysters. Yeah, and the
(35:32):
adoption of aquacultures and hatcheries in the region has changed that.
And we're hopefully going to visit one of these. It's
gonna be pretty big for the Southern oyster industry. Yeah. Um.
Random fact Murder Point oysters are so named because one
guy killed another guy in an oyster territory dispute where
these oysters are formed. I just thought that was interesting. Okay,
(35:56):
so much so much murder in this oyster episode. Who knew? Huh? Well,
that is oyster history in the shell, some kind of
pun there. Yeah, so let's talk about some oyster science.
But first let's pause for another quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor. Yes, okay, So,
(36:27):
so science and health and weather. Oysters are an aphrodisiac h. First, nutrition,
oysters are high in protein, good fats, iron, calcium, a
few other vitamins and minerals, and they're really pretty good
for you. They're feeling without being too heavy. Uh, eat
more oysters? Yeah? Okay. However, if you're immunocompromised or have
a liver disease, you probably shouldn't eat them raw due
(36:50):
to danger of infection with a few types of bacteria
that can cause serious problems in humans. Um that they're
in the same genus as A as a cholera. Um,
it's the Vibrio genus. Yes. Uh, Well, related to that,
is it actually dangerous to eat oysters in month that
don't contain the letter are in their name. I have
never heard this before, and now I'm seeing it all
(37:12):
over like just randomly. Yeah, it's probably because I've been
researching oysters. That could be that could be absolutely what
it is. Yes, it's an old saying and there is
a little bit of truth to it in the northern
hemisphere at any rate, because months without the letter are
are May, June, July, and August, which are the height
of summer, and these potentially dangerous Fibrio bacteria thrive in
(37:35):
warmer weather. So there is a slightly higher risk of
infection when you eat raw oysters during the summer months,
especially if they're from warmer areas like the Gulf of Mexico.
But infection is pretty rare. According to the CDC, vibe
vibriosis causes about eighty thousand illnesses and a hundred deaths
every year in the United States, which is nothing compared
to like say, salmonella, which causes one point two million
(37:58):
illnesses and four fifty deaths every year. So don't be
too scared, but do do use your best judgment along
the aphrodisiac lines. Now that I've talked about the terrifying
disease lines. Um, So there's no evidence that oysters are
in aphrodisia. What And I know you've heard this science
news story from like a decade ago that said that
(38:20):
there was there was evidence along those lines, um, which
was a case of poor science journalism. Oh no, that
never happens never ever, which means our jobs are done. Yeah,
we can all go home, goodbye. Oh no, okay, so
so so what happened in this particular case was there
was an undergraduate study into the chemical makeup of muscles,
which are of course related to oysters, UM, where the
(38:41):
researchers found this amino acid called D S partic I
think I'm saying that right, I'm going to move forward
um and that amano acid has been found to increase
the levels of sex hormones in lab rats. But they
did not test oysters. They did not test anything in humans. However,
the funny thing about rumored aphrodisiacs is that they're really
(39:02):
placebo compatible, which means that if you believe that they're
going to work, it's basically a coin flip of a
chance that they'll totally work. I feel like, yeah, if
you want something to work in that situation, they're already
kind of You're right there, you're already kind of there. Yeah.
So so much of so much of an arousal is
(39:23):
is in your brain that yeah, if you if you're
into it, I mean, I mean, eats some oysters and
have fun. Oh yeah. But the signs wise and oh,
back to scary things. Okay, so so so pollution. Oysters
are bottom feeders in shallow areas, which means that they're
usually right by an ocean coastline, right along with any
(39:43):
pollutants that dump out from local waterways or the groundwater. Plus,
like lots of sea creatures, they can wind up storing
harmful stuff in their bodies, and researchers have found traces
of stuff like mercury, arsenic, and human medications in oysters.
But but again, probably not enough to worry about unless
you're either immuno compromised or eating like a lot of oysters.
(40:08):
How much is a lot? Which I mean I mean
if you binge on like a couple dozen every once
in a while, I think you're fine. I've been known
to get into some trouble at Oyster Fest if you
if like Casanova, you're eating like fifty every morning, then
I might cut that out. I can't afford that. So excellent,
Well good, I'm gonna be fine. Oh, back back to
(40:33):
back to sexuality though, uh, oysters. Oysters reproductive lives are
really interesting. I mean from from a human perspective anyway,
I mean, for them, it's normal everyday kind of stuff. Uh.
Oysters change their sex at least once during their lifetimes,
at least once they're hermaphroditic. They tend to be male
and produced sperm early on in their lives. Um sperm
(40:55):
production requires fewer resources, and they're really busy bulking up
their shells. At that point. When they get a little
bit older, they tend to switch to female sex and
egg production, and they can switch back and forth depending
on the conditions in their environment. So I love that
you wrote bulking up the shell for the male oyster
(41:16):
like life. That's pretty great. Okay, let's talk about some
popular some popular oyster recipes. So the first one I
thought of as oysters Rockefeller and this is supposedly allegedly
New Orleans chef Jewels AlSi a tour. I wanted to
(41:40):
say it in an Italian way, but I looked up
a video and it's AlSi a tour of Antoine's restaurant.
Um supposedly lays claims to this recipe and the story
goes he created it in the original recipe is kind
of a culinary secret. Oh yeah, but it involves baking
oysters with pars a shallots, Tabasco sauce in butter, and
(42:02):
they are quite delicious if you've never had them prepared
this way. I recommend it. Pigs in a blanket. What
that's a hot dog wrapped in dough. That's what I
thought too, But apparently this used to refer to broiled
oysters wrapped in bacon. Oh my goodness, I know, going
all the way back to it also goes by the
(42:23):
name Angels on Horseback and yeah, we should try this,
yes soon. Another one. I've never heard of this oysters Kirkpatrick.
Have you heard of this lore? I have not, so
this probably first appeared on a menu sometime in the
nineteen twenties at San Francisco's Palace Hotel. According to the hotel,
it's broiled oysters topped with ketchup, bacon and green peppers,
(42:47):
sometimes with cheese. Huh. It kept popping up in search results, so,
I mean, I believe it's delicious because it's made with oysters.
Ketchup is kind of throwing me, and I love ketchup,
but I would definitely give it a go. I mean,
it's got a little bit of a vinegar component, so
I suppose that's like cocktail sauce is yeah, sure, okay, Um,
(43:10):
there's the Thanksgiving tradition of using oysters and stuffing in
New England. Oh, which of course makes perfect sense. It does.
I've never had this, but people still do it. I hear.
It goes back pretty far to the first written recipe,
appearing in a cookbook out of London called The Accomplished cook. Yeah,
(43:30):
not not with an e D on the end of accomplished,
but a T rather, just for flavor. It would make
sense that it would make the journey in North America,
and since oysters were so plentiful and popular in New England,
it would make sense that they would be out of
two stuffing. Yeah, I would like to try that as well.
Just things I want to try. Also, we can't in
(43:52):
this episode without mentioning oyster vending machines. This is a thing.
I need this in my life. It exists, but it
only existed France currently and it's twenty four seven. What
just you know, whenever you have your oyster craving, there's
a vending machine. They're kept refrigerated and restocked daily, and
(44:12):
they're sold clothed to prevent food poisoning. And they're actually
pretty inexpensive for oysters. For oysters, they cost about eight
dollars for a dozen. Oh yeah, that's a totally good
price for an oyster. So you have to shuck them yourself,
like on the street. Oh that's true. What if you
because I imagine if you're going it three am, say,
you might be a little inebriated possibly, and then you
(44:36):
get you get this, get your oyster craving, you get
your oyster at the vending machine. M there's possibility for
injury there. Chucking oysters is not the easiest thing in
the world. I've never tried it. I've watched carefully while
other people do it. It's it can be very difficult.
There's a there's definitely a method to it. You want
(44:58):
to go in right at the knuck all. But if
there's alcohol involved, that's that's the thing. Like by the
time anyone ever gets around to shucking an oyster around
me like, yeah, I feel like my time for shucking
his path. Yes, it's a limited there's a small window
when you should be doing it. Really yeah. Um oh,
and I wanted to mention that if you'd like to
(45:18):
hear more about oysters, the gas Troopod podcast has a
really great episode where they interview Rowan Jacobson, who's the
author of The Essential Oyster, and uh, I found it
enlightening and you might too. Yes, it was very enlightening.
And that brings us to the end of this classic episode.
(45:40):
I hope you enjoyed of what former and Annie Laura
had to say. Yeah, this was this was a fun one.
I was clearly hyper caffeinated, but you know that happens
to the best of us. Yeah, I mean I feel
like that's any episode roll the dice, it's likely one
of us is hyper caffeinated or undercaffeinated. Oh oh yeah, yeah,
(46:04):
and it's usually a trade off. I feel like we
I feel like we do a good job of balancing
each other out like that. Yes, you know, we try,
we try, we succeed yea, so we don't. Yeah. I
was also just really excited about like bivalves and murder um.
I mean, those are two things you get excited about
they are. Oh and speaking of murder, um, Annie, may
(46:27):
I may I plug a new show that I'm working on.
I mean a segue like, speaking of murder I picked
deserves a plug? Yes, all right, so um, so y'all
are familiar with with Aaron minky Um and his production
company Grim and Mild. They they do um Lower and
Cabinet of Curiosities, UM, a couple other shows, Yeah, and
(46:50):
they decided that they wanted to do a new show
that focuses on these dark, true, weird stories from specifically
American history. And so that is how the show American
Shadows came about. And they tapped me to narrate it
because I don't know, I've been training all my life
(47:10):
to be both very factual and sort of goth. I guess, yeah,
thank you. Um. Yeah. So it's uh, it's the reason
that I that I enjoy it is not just because
of you know, the the murder and dismemberment in etcetera, etcetera,
but also the way that the Grim and Mild writing
(47:30):
and research team is constructing these stories is to to
bring to light these stories where you know, it was
a time and place where where stuff kind of sucked. Um,
and it probably sucked specifically for a couple of people
really intensely. Um. But at the end of the proverbial day, uh,
(47:50):
you know, truth and justice prevail, and so those are
really nice stories to hear about right now, Yes, yes, true,
and if you couldn't tell listeners, we are big fans
of the macawbro. You have to say it in that
specific voice. I'm pretty sure you do and overpronounced the R. Yes,
(48:10):
that's in the dictionary. But yeah, we're big fans of
that and big fans of Lauren. Obviously I'm not always
a big fan of Lauren. But but but thank you, well,
I am here to fill in the gap. There you go. Yes, yes,
um so highly yeah, highly recommend checking that out listeners. Yeah, yeah,
(48:34):
it's it's a it's fun to do and you get
to you get to hear my serious voice. And also
it has provided a lot of very funny instances where
we into recording, Lauren will just say, Okay, I gotta
go talk about murder, and I'm like, oh, I hope
it's for work. Oh oh. And our and our dear
(48:58):
friend Miranda, Miranda Hockey and is producing it and she's
just putting it together in really really lovely ways. Both
of us are our humans, m rand and I, who
probably over associate with Marce Layne from Adventure. So we
make a good we make a good duo. I think, yes, yes,
I would agree. Miranda is awesome. Oh gosh, yeah another man.
(49:21):
I miss all you guys. I really miss my coworkers.
I do too, coworkers and friends. Yes, um, and you
know what. We We love hearing from you listeners. Yes,
you can email us at hello at savor pod dot com. Yes,
because you're also our friends. We're also on social media.
(49:43):
You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at
savor pod, and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks, it's always towards superproducers Dylan Fagan
and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we
hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
(50:10):
H
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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