Eating live animals

The reality TV show I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here is justifiably popular in the UK. Set in Australia, the contestants live in a basic camp and we viewers see edited versions of their conversations and other interactions. To boost their diet of rice and beans, selected individuals compete in “Bushtucker Trials” that involve something very unpleasant, like having large numbers of cockroaches, mealworms etc. thrown over them in a confined space (see below). Until the last series, the trials most popular with the viewing public were those involving the eating of animal body parts and also live insects. The latter torture has now been banned as it is perceived by some as being cruel; yet eating live animals is encouraged elsewhere – take the case of oysters.

Oysters are bivalve molluscs that produce a feeding current using enormous numbers of tiny hairs, or cilia, that are present on the gills. This current has a dual function as it evolved from the respiratory current, particles trapped on the surface of the gill then being transferred to the mouth by other tracts of cilia. To aid retention, oysters, like other bivalves, produce mucus, or slime, on the gills and particles captured are thus bundled up into packages from which nutritious material can be selected by an ingenious sorting mechanism using the lips (labial palps) around the mouth.

The two shell valves are joined by a hinge and a muscle runs from one shell valve to the other and this serves to close the oyster if it is exposed to the atmosphere, when attacked, or not feeling. Sea water is trapped when the shell valves are closed and this prevents damage to the soft body tissues. When we buy oysters, they have frequently been out of water for hours, so the content of the water is changed by the addition of mucus and excreta, although not at levels that poison the mollusc.

The classic way to open oysters is to shuck them and this is shown in the video [1]. Note that both the hinge and adductor muscle (between the shell valves) are cut, but no reference is made to the oyster being alive and that the water + excreta are referred to as the liquor. The flavour of the liquor is an important part of eating oysters and there are debates over whether one should chew the animals or crush them against the palate using the tongue. Fortunately, the molluscs are often served on a bed of ice so, at least, their metabolism is reduced, even if they are sometimes sprayed with dilute acid (lemon juice).

For those who do not like the idea of eating live animals, there are many recipes for cooking, and preserving, oysters and that is not a surprise, when they were such a common food, and not the luxuries that they have become today. Cooking also serves to kill bacteria that might otherwise cause intestinal disorders in those eating them: something that may have been common when oysters were collected from areas where there was a high level of pollution.

Lovell [2] gives many recipes for cooking oysters and they can be listed. Some involved rapid killing of the molluscs, others did not:

Oyster soup (7 recipes)

Oyster sauce (4 recipes)

Oyster atlets – with sweetbreads

Curried oyster atlets

Curried oysters

Stewed ousters (6 recipes)

Dutch oysters – coated in breadcrumbs and fried

Fried oysters (6 recipes)

Oyster ragout (2 recipes)

Grilled oysters

Oysters broiled the Dutch way

Roast oysters (3 recipes)

Ostras á la Pollada

Boiled oysters

Oyster sausages (2 recipes)

Minced oysters

Oyster forcemeat

Oysters and chestnuts

Oyster steak

Scalloped oysters (3 recipes)

Oyster fritters

Oyster loaf

Oysters and macaroni

Oyster pie (3 recipes)

Oyster and eel pie

Oyster and parsnip pie

Pickled oysters (4 recipes)

Oyster powder (2 recipes)

Oysters on toast (2 recipes)

Oyster ketchup

Oysters au gratin

An impressive list, and gourmets among you should refer to Lovell [2] for descriptions of how to prepare oysters for each dish. Its length is a reflection on the importance of these molluscs in the diet of many European nations (and beyond) in earlier centuries.

Arguably, the most interesting way of preparing oysters is described thus by Lovell [2]:

The oldest way of cooking an oyster, of which we have any mention, is that recorded by Evelyn, who, in the year 1672, saw Richardson, “the famous fire-eater”, perform wondrous feats, one of which was, “taking a live coal on his tongue, he put on it a raw oyster; the coal was blown on with bellows, till it flam’d and sparkl’d in his mouth, and so remained till the oyster gaped, and was quite boil’d.” Who ate the oyster thus cooked, we are not informed.

Anyone fancy trying that?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GtBu8nzbA4

[2] M.S.Lovell (1884) The Edible Mollusca of Great Britain and Ireland, with Recipes for Cooking them (Second Edition). London, L.Reeve & Co.