Consider the Oyster by M.F.K. Fisher

Consider the Oyster Reviews

• 
  John Jr.

  This exceedingly modest book (a mere 77 pages) presented me with some modest, unexpected dilemmas. Seeing it in a book swap and recalling, from an encounter years ago, that I was determined to read one of her volumes someday, I picked it up, thinking I'd breeze through it and return it to the swap--I'm trying to pare my library. But I find I don't want to let go of it. Now the question is whether it belongs in my kitchen with the cookbooks (because it does contain recipes) or somewhere among the more serious nonfiction. Though I can hardly call myself a cook, I'm tempted at least to try the oyster stuffing in a turkey someday. On the other hand...
  
  A good portion of human life in the more indulgent cultures these days is devoted to gastro-porn: a form of life-out-of-balance in which too much time, money, and attention is expended on increasingly fine points of restaurants, recipes, ingredients, schools of thought on nutrition, and the like. Pay attention to sex this way and you may be labeled an addict. M. F. K. Fisher was apparently never susceptible to this kind of excess, because food was apparently never the main point. Like an ellipse (if you remember your high-school geometry), she has two focal points: one is food, the other is, to put it simply, the romance of people and places--i.e., the rest of life. Here, her account includes the curiously bi-gendered life of the oyster itself, an imaginative reconstruction of a dining delight from her mother's boarding-school days, the tale (fanciful but still true in its way) of a nervous collegian hoping to bolster his virility, and the only funny recipe I've ever read, as recounted to her by "a cadaverous old man who had reigned at various times in the kitchens of all the crowned heads and banker-princes of fin-de-Hapsbourg Europe."
  
  Because she has restored the balance to my sense of the place food may have in our affairs, in a way that's positively classical--something that no mere cookbook or food-magazine article has ever done--I think I know which shelf I'll put this on.
• 
  Hilary Hanselman

  A delicious morsel of a book.
  
  "It should be opened at street temperature in a cool month, never iced, and plucked from its rough irregular shell at once, so that its black gills still vibrate and cringe with the shock of the air upon them. It should be swallowed, not too fast, and then its fine salt juices, more like the smell of rock pools at low tide than any other food in the world, should be drunk at one gulp from the shell. Then, of course, a bite or two of buttered brown bread must follow, better to stimulate the papilles...and then, of course, of course, a fine mouthful of a white wine."
  
  Must read for oyster lovers, food writers/readers, and those who like subtle humor.
• 
  emily

  "Cicero ate oysters to nourish his eloquence, and the ancients used them with a startlingly cold-blooded combination of gastronomy and pure hygiene."
  
  This was such a joy to read. Finished it in one go. So impressed with Fisher's writing, and very keen to read her other writings. I read this book as someone w/ a love/fear relationship w/ oysters. I only eat raw ones on special occasions because of the risk of 'parasites' and/or
  Vibriosis. And because of that I can almost always remember each time I'd indulge in them - the last time was with a friend in Borough Market wedged between tourists and office workers. The time before that was probably in Whitstable during 'oyster season'.
  
  “Almost any normal oyster never knows from one year to the next whether he is he or she, and may start at any moment, after the first year, to lay eggs where before he spent his sexual energies in being exceptionally masculine. If he is a she, her energies are equally feminine, so that in a single summer, if all goes well, and the temperature of the water is somewhere around or above seventy degrees, she may spawn several hundred million eggs, fifteen to one hundred million at a time, with commendable pride.”
  
  Besides the curiously wonderful recipes (very interested to try the oyster gumbo), Fisher includes in the book a history and life-cycle of the oysters - written in the most brilliant way one can about a humble mollusk.
  
  “He devotes himself to drinking, and rapidly develops an enviable capacity, so that in good weather, when the temperature stays near seventy-eight degrees, he can easily handle twenty-six or-seven quarts an hour. He manages better than most creatures to combine business with pleasure, and from this stream of water that passes through his gills he strains out all the delicious little diatoms and peridia that are his food.”
  
  I've never read anything quite like that before; it is almost as if someone had David Attenborough compose a narrative about food. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Fisher's rather short book about oysters, and now I'm left with the wildest craving for a bowl of
  tempura-fried oysters on rice. Or maybe
  oyster 'bo ssam'?
• 
  Jim

  This book both introduced me to and sparked my love of oysters and also of MFK Fisher, whom W. H. Auden called "America's greatest writer...."
  http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/01/18...
  
  "An oyster leads a dreadful but exciting life. Indeed, his chance to live at all is slim, and if he should survive the arrows of his own outrageous fortune and in the two weeks of his carefree youth find a clean smooth place to fix on, the years afterwards are full of stress, passion and danger. . . ."
  
  "Men have enjoyed eating oysters since they were not much more than monkeys, according to the kitchen middens they have left behind them. And thus, in their own one-minded way, they have spent time and thought and money on the problems of how to protect oysters from the suckers and the borers and the starvers, until now it is comparatively easy to eat this two-valved mollusk anywhere, without thought of the dangers it has run in its few years. Its chilly delicate gray body slips into a stew-pan or under a broiler or alive down a red throat, and it is done. Its life has been thoughtless but no less full of danger, and now that it is over we are perhaps the better for it."
  
  
  
  
  "The point about her, as Ms. Ferrary notes in "Between Friends: M. F. K. Fisher and Me," is that Mrs. Fisher is not just a food writer. If she writes better than anyone about tangerines, it's because "underneath it all, she's not writing about tangerines." The tangential nature of the tangerines is confirmed over and over in Mrs. Fisher's writing. Witness this parenthesis to an assertion about the crisp flesh of oysters, for example, in one of her early books, "Consider the Oyster" (1941): " Crisp is not quite right, and flesh is not right, but in the same way you might say that oyster is not right for what I mean."
  
  So what is M. F. K. Fisher writing about? Desire, neediness, solace, comfort, satisfaction. Ms. Ferrary finds her sensual rather than sexual. Coming to the writing for the first time, I would dare to disagree. Lots of it seems to me to be about sex. But you cannot be sure.
  http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/11..."
  
• 
  Shemaiah Gonzalez

  The cover bears her photograph, a woman, young enough to be attractive in the eyes of society but old enough to possess some bit of wisdom. She wears a shimmery knit top, the kind one would wear to a cocktail party not a potluck picnic. Her hair is pulled back into a chignon and her eyebrows plucked within an inch of their life or perhaps gone all together and merely drawn on with a pencil to present the illusion of interest.
  
  Yet even without this photograph, I would have had a similar mental picture of MFK Fisher simply by her voice in, Consider the Oyster, her collection of essays on, you guessed it, the subject of oysters. I would have imagined her in pearls with a martini in her hand describing her recipes of oyster- or ---in a plummy diction reminiscent of Martha Stewart before jail, before she became friends with Snoop Dogg and an old Hollywood actress that graced the films for the 30’s or 40’s. Her accent, of course, would be neither British or American in origin, but somewhere that hovers over the Atlantic for those who can afford to spend time in both places frequently enough.
  
  Fisher begins this tone right from the beginning in her first essay, “Love and Death Among the Molluscs.” “Almost any normal oyster never knows from one year to the next whether he is he or she,” Fisher explains in her droll sort of way letting us know that “American oysters differ as much as American people, so that the Atlantic Coast inhabitants spend their childhood and adolescence floating free and unprotected with the tides…while the Western oysters lie within special brood-chambers of the maternal shell.” She tells us right off the bat her preferences for both oysters and people. Of course, Fisher believes “the Easterners seem more daring.” (3-4)
  
  The essay “R is for Oyster” begins with an epithet, which in this case, is a marker from a grave stone,
  
  C. Pearl Swallow
  
  He died of a bad oyster.
  
  Fisher says, “The man’s name was good for such an end, but probably the end was not.” I see her take the olive out of her martini to nibble upon, giving her guests enough time to laugh heartily. She goes on the describe the long and miserable death but as one would give a dry cocktail party anecdote, “And, God, he was thirsty, thirsty…I’m dying, he thought, and even in his woe he regretted it, and did not believe it. But he died.” (15)
  
  
  
  This conversational tone makes even recipes interesting as the preface to the recipe for Dried Oysters with Vegetables shows.
  
  “Dried oysters, which can be bought at almost any Oriental grocery store in the is country and are very much like the smoked oysters people give you now at cocktail parties, excellent little shrived things on toothpicks which make your mouth taste hideous unless you drink a lot, which may also make your mouth taste hideous. “(34)
  
  Fisher teaches both the writer and the conversationalist that you can never exhaust your subject, if you add a bit of yourself in the content.
• 
  Chris

  After reading this book, I had two thoughts: MFK Fisher is a crazy, snobby old loon; and would I ever love to sit next to her at a dinner party. Her writing is witty, knowledgeable and from a different era. There are great recipes; the one on oyster loaves was the most tantalizing to me. At about 75 pages, this book is an easy read. I would read other stuff by this looney old girl.
• 
  Donna

  MFK Fisher is my new girl crush. Just look at her. This book really is just about oysters and I wish there was more. Fisher is sharp, snobby and super funny. She has included several recipes. My favorite is To Make a Pearl. In the list of ingredients, 1 diving-girl.
• 
  Kendal

  Pure joy!
• 
  Forrest

  Fisher's pleasure in the acts of both eating and writing is evident on every page (and I don't even eat oysters!).
• 
  Amy Watson

  A delightful little book of essays on the oyster- including recipes, pearls of wisdom(!!!) and reminiscences- written by a witty, sassy lady in the 1940s. From the milky oyster stews of New England, to Oyster loaf in Victorian boarding school and Oysters Rockerfella in New Orleans. I want some oysters now.
• 
  Julianne

  MFK Fisher is a snob and I like it. I wouldn't want to have been friends with her but I love reading her words. Bought this book for K a long time ago because he loves oysters, and I stole it from him.
  
  Sentences like: "A better [tartar sauce] can be made from this recipe, which is easy if you have an herb garden, and impossible, but still fun to think about, if you do not."
  
  Or: "Far removed as this recipe may seem from the ordinary kitchen's possibilities, it still has not that fabulous quality of the rule quoted by everyone from Richelieu's chef to Crosby Gaige, in which you put one thing inside another until you have something more or less the size of an elephant, then roast the whole thing and finally throw away all but the innermost thing. For instance, you start with an oyster. You put it inside a large olive, then you put the olive inside an ortolan (a wee bird called "the garden bunting," in case you are among the underprivileged), and the ortolan inside a lark, and so on and so on. In the end, you have a roasted oyster. Or perhaps a social revolution."
  
  
• 
  Jake Cooper

  What a weird read. A 75-page ode to the gastronomy of oysters, written in 1942, dotted with recipes and nostalgia. Charming despite (because of?) her snootiness.
  
  After a recipe for butter crackers: "This is something you will probably never taste in your life, unless you are stubborn or have a crazy cook, but it is nice to know that there are still live people who have eaten something other than those light dead things we call oyster crackers with their stews."
  
  "Men insist that [oysters in late summer] will kill you or make you wish they had. This is wrong, of course, except that all oysters, like all men, are somewhat weaker after they have done their best at reproducing."
• 
  Desiree Koh

  As long as it takes for an oyster to slowly evolve its way into crispness/liquoric stupor/optimal salinity is about as long as you'd want to linger over every word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, chapter of this book. Fisher takes her time to nudge descriptions into succinctness, whether directly narrating factual foundations or musing in the heavens of magical realism laced with truth. It's the literary equivalent of slow food, proving there are two sides (probably more) to every bivalve story.
• 
  Fishface

  Leave it to MFK Fisher to write a whole book on Oysters. She was apparently a devoted consumer of these unlucky shellfish, typical of her "I'll eat anything" motto in life. She covers -- you should pardon the expression -- the entire waterfront with this book, with recipes for everything from Oyster Loaf to Hang Town Fry as well as all the mythology and folk beliefs about the benefits of eating screaming, live protoplasm cut out of the shell.
• 
  Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance

  One of the signs that M.F.K. Fisher is an amazing writer: Fisher can write an entire book about oysters and it's cover-to-cover fascinating.
  
  I have eaten oysters. They were delicious. But I would be fine if I never ate them again.
  
  Still, I read this book and I couldn't stop reading. If you are an oyster-lover, it's definitely a book for you. And even if you are not, you may want to read it anyway.
• 
  Nat

  I learned that you can make an "oyster loaf" by slicing off the top of a loaf of crusty bread, jamming a bunch of fried oysters in there, covering everything with butter, and then sticking it back in the oven. Sounds tasty.
  
  Also, I (think I) learned that oysters are alive when you eat them raw.
• 
  John

  This is what all food writing should be. So witty and erudite that it barely touches the ground; effortlessly edifying. Full of richness, but easy like a summer breeze. MFK Fisher is a stunning writer.
• 
  Madelynp

  This slight book is so completely and utterly charming! I have always enjoyed reading MFK Fisher, and this is no different -- she writes poetically about the oyster and inspires me as a lover of the mollusk, to consider all of the wonderful things one can do with oysters.
• 
  Vanessa

  I love Mary Frances' prose and anecdotes - and this may be the best argument ever put forth to eat an oyster - but I still remain somewhat unconvinced. If I ever find myself at an oyster bar, think of this book, and give it a go, I will rectify this review to four stars.
• 
  Brad

  Mandatory reading for the ostriavore. Includes colorful recipes, polemics and oysterlore.
• 
  monica

  Minus stars for outrageously racist statements interspersed throughout otherwise funny and interesting writing!
• 
  Kat

  What a pearler!
• 
  Hannah

  Classic MFK Fisher. Funny, erudite and evocative of days gone by.... her writing about oysters and what to drink with oysters (definitely not hard liquor) makes me really want to head straight to Flying Fish and order a glass of crisp Alsatian wine and a dozen raw succulent oysters. (Though I'll skip the oyster loaf, I'm glad to read about it and her quest for the right recipe.)
  I think I'll start saying "I don't give a toot or a tinkle" about what people think, thanks to her usage of the phrase on pg. 43.
• 
  Angie

  Easy breezy beautiful. Now I’m craving a dozen oysters with an ice cold glass of Chablis
• 
  Trevor Garner

  “It’s life has been thoughtless but no less full of danger, and now that it is over, we are perhaps the better for it.”
• 
  Mélanie

  Poésie culinaire.
  Dans cette sublime édition illustrée par la jeune maison d'édition Dalva, M. F. K. Fisher nous livre des recettes étonnantes et une histoire détaillée du mollusque vénéré ou détesté. Epicurienne et documentaliste animalière de passion, l'autrice nous offre un recueil qui nous amuse et nous fait saliver de la première à la dernière page !
• 
  Goldfishing

  Fun
• 
  Sam Spier

  Great snippy writing. It was certainly a choice to read a book about Oysters when I live in a country where they’re impossible to find
• 
  Shelby Stevens

  consider the oyster … considered