Raw oysters

[Ironboolit]

I love raw oysters with cocktail sauce, lemon, a little horseradish and crackers. Does anyone else like them, tell me how you eat them. Always looking for different ways to eat them please chime in.

[Winger Ed.]

I like them with a bump of Tobasco sauce.

My Dad commented once that the possibly the bravest person in human history was whoever ate the first raw oyster.

[trapper9260]

When I eat them or any other clams ,I eat them with out anything.

[Thundarstick]

I've had to much parictology to ever enjoy anything raw! I do love them broiled on the half with a little seasoning and cheese.

[smithnframe]

I like them with some horseradish and some cocktail sauce!

[toallmy]

I'll shuck a few seaside oysters for the little darling a few times a year , she gives them a shot of hot sauce but I prefer them fried singles or in fritters . Bayside oysters generally get roasted or stewed .
But I believe the best way to eat oysters is fire roasted over a bed of seaweed covered with wet burlap sacks with friends .

[farmerjim]

Rolled in seasoned corn flour, then flash fried for 45 seconds. The outside is crisp and the inside is liquid.

[dale2242]

Not raw for me.
I do love them cooked on the grill or over an open fire.
When the oysters start to steam, I open them and place them back on the grill on the half shell.
I like them pretty well done dipped in garlic butter and a touch of hot sauce.

[T-Bird]

I've yet to meet the oyster I didn't like. Even the ones I ate in college that gave me the worst case of diarrhea I ever had, tasted good! I eat'em raw with lemon or cocktail sauce, fried, stewed,grilled, Rockefeller, bienville, dressing, you name it. After the oil spill tho, you gotta get a second job to pay for'em.

[Wayne Smith]

Somehow I've never developed a like for something that slid down my gullet before I swallowed it!

[Buck Shot]

Here on the VA coast, we gather fresh oysters in the winter. They almost got wiped out by Hurricane Agnes back in the 70s and the MSX and dermo diseases that followed, but the past several years, they've been coming back like gangbusters!

I like them raw but I also like them steamed. What I normally do is hose most of the mud off them, then put them into one of those big "turkey roasters" with the lid, and set that on top of the woodstove for 20 minutes or however long it takes them to open. Then eat them. No cocktail sauce, no nothing -- because that just covers up their delicate flavor!

I will admit to eating the raw ones that get broken while culling them out on the oyster rocks...nothing better!

[DougGuy]

My love of oysters on the half shell goes waaaaaaay back.. It is a sordid affair.. I grew up on the Mississippi gulf coast, right on the water, so oysters were a regular item for me. Fried oyster po-boy OMG these are LEGENDARY all along the coast. Oyster dressing at Thanksgiving, it ain't Thanksgiving without cornbread dressing with oysters. Oyster shooters while I cooked Thanksgiving dinner? Oh hell yeah!!

2oz. to 4oz. beer in a glass, adjust to personal preference
big spoon of horseradish cocktail sauce
dash of tabasco
dash of worcestershire
stir, add oyster, enjoy!

Now the down side. I had a platter of Louisiana oysters on the half shell in a Texas restaurant one evening, one or two of the oysters had little pearls in them, one had 7! I thought at the time "oretty cool!" Not long after that I came down with Hepatitis, and I can't help but wonder if it didn't come from the oysters. Fact is, oysters make pearls when something irritates them, it's their way of smoothing over the irritant, oysters in clean water don't make pearls. Methinks.. Hmmmmmmmm...

Since then I have held my half shell indulgence to a bare minimum, a few shooters at Thanksgiving. Then after kicking cancer's ass 3x, I don't enjoy raw oysters at all anymore. Maybe ONE every few years. Maybe.. My immune system just isn't up to protecting me.

They used to say "Eat fish live longer, eat oysters love longer." That's true! You will love oysters longer!

Here's the deal.. Gulf oysters are normally not too salty, depends on the salinity of the water how your oysters will taste. After heavy rains they lose that salty flavor. If you are near the North Carolina inner banks, Stumptown, Englehard, any of these areas on the Pamlico sound and Pamlico river, these are usually VERY salty and are undoubtedly the best tasting oysters anywhere in the Eastern half of the US. These are my go-to of choice. Some years the harvest is slim and they are hard to get, some years the rains have washed out the salty flavor.

Last Thanksgiving I got a box of Barrier Island oysters in the shell from Wegman's and they were QUITE GOOD! Wegman's usually has a varied selection of oysters in the shell, but they can be pretty pricey, I don't like paying $1/ea for oysters.

If you can't get good decent salty oysters anywhere, Food Lion and other stores sell the Northwest Pacific oysters marketed under the Willapoint name, these are usually marked extra small but they are HUGE compared to Gulf and Atlantic oysters. If you use these in cornbread dressing, be careful! They can overpower the dressing pretty easily.. Super salty, and super flavorful, if you love that salty flavor, these deliver!

[Finster101]

I like almost anything on them raw but they need to be cold, cold, cold. I'll also eat them cooked any way the come but prefer them fried.

[gwpercle]

I've had to much parictology to ever enjoy anything raw! I do love them broiled on the half with a little seasoning and cheese.

I'm with You Thundarstick ... Broiled or Char-Grilled , just barely cooked, in a nice wine and parmesan & romano cheese suace ! I find the little bit of heat brings out much more flavor than just cold raw oysters ... I'm 72 now and don't tempt fate like when I was twenty .
So many good places in N.O. have them ... Mr.Ed's , Acme Oyster House , Drago's ... there's even a couple places in Baton Rouge that do a good grilled or broiled oyster ... now I'm getting hungry !
Gary

[jdfoxinc]

Raw NO!!! Any other way yes.

[Char-Gar]

I took several parasitology classes in college and that will give you a new point of view on what you eat. I will eat nothing raw except some fruit and a few veggies.

[Bwana John]

My thoughts on the subject revolve around dinoflagellate Dinophysis, cooked or raw.

On the west coast we don't eat filter feeders when the fire dances on the water.

While bioluminesence looks cool, it can kill you.

[MaryB]

You can have my share...

[T-Bird]

Most food borne illness in my part of the country that comes from eating raw oysters is from a bacteria called vibrio. This is the genus of the bug, there are lots of species. The most notable one is vibrio cholera. We all know about that one due to the epidemics etc. That's not the same bug. In my part of the country the word on eating raw oysters used to be: eat them only in months with an "r" in them that is the cooler months. Vibrio doesn't do as well in cooler waters, but it's not gone. It's just "safer" in these months. Us hardcore oysterphiles took this as "go for it"!

[Hogtamer]

Raw or fried quickly with a thin batter. Horseradish sauce!