The Hog Island Oyster Lover's Cookbook
The foodie lifestyle is a bit like a scavenger hunt, except that you collect experiences instead of items. Collect enough, and the realm of foodiedom embraces you. Collect all of them, and I suppose you become Jeffrey Steingarten.
Just like any good scavenger hunt, some items on the foodie list score more points than others. Eating raw oysters is a high-ticket item; most people can't get past the slimy, soft texture. I couldn't when I tried them as a kid, and I banished them from my mouth for years. But as an adult I fell for the tender, briny raw meat. Once you find your way to them, it's hard to imagine eating them any other way.
So I made the inevitable joke when I opened The Hog Island Oyster Lover's Cookbook: "Why do you need a cookbook for oysters? Isn't every recipe just shuck, slurp, repeat?"
It turns out you can cook them. Who knew? Jairemarie Pomo has recipes for Oysters Rockefeller, Oysters with Chorizo and White Beans, Thai Oyster Soup, and more. She also serves up recipes for raw oyster dishes — Oyster Shooters and Oysters with Cucumber, Lime, and Sake are two of them — and sauces to sprinkle on the meaty morsels. I don't know how much I'd vouch for the recipes as they're written. I made the Oysters Poached in White Wine with Caviar when we had Clotilde et al over for dinner, but on a dry run Melissa and I thought it would need a little zing. I used wasabi caviar instead, and that made the dish. Pomo herself, with another oyster and caviar dish, adds lemon ice.
The recipes may tempt the oyster lover, but Pomo also devotes about 80 pages to oyster lore. Not surprisingly, that information, told in straightforward text, centers around Hog Island, the famous oyster production company in Tomales Bay (there are others nearby, but Hog Island has always managed to combine marketing savvy with high quality). You hear about the favorite shucking knives of the Hog Island staff, their production techniques, and so forth, without learning about other oyster farms. But some of the information is universal: species, shucking technique with asides about equipment, and eating oysters in months without R's. I wish her section on alcohol and oysters covered more drinks — where is Muscadet in her list? why does she only mention French Sauvignon Blancs and not New Zealands, even though the latter often win oyster-wine pairing contests? — but that is the voice of a wine geek. At least she devotes time to the topic.
My favorite oyster recipe is "3-4 drops of lemon juice," but Pomo's dishes keep tempting me. If you like oysters — even if you don't like them raw — you'll find a place for The Hog Island Oyster Cookbook on your shelf.
This book was sent to me for review.
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