An Oyster Oddysey

Having been a hiatus since I started this blog due to life's subject matter getting in the way of writing and due to the fact that blogging didn't exist when I first started my passionate relationship with oysters, I have an immense backlog of stories to tell; they're piling up in the back of my mind like the oyster midden in my back garden.

You already know about my bloody initiation into the world of oysters but there was a long period as I mentioned where they did not feature in my life. I'd forgotten about them in the teenage milieu of life. However, one chance encounter in Mozambique changed all of that and brought, streaming back, the memories of wild life on the coasts of our planet where we can meet and silently converse with our primal selves.

I took two backpacking trips to South Africa when I was 18 and six and a half month period over my 19th and 20th years. On the second trip I met a group of people in a backpackers in Capetown and we travelled together through festivals in the Orange Free State, parties in Johannesburg and then we took a train to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. Our final destination was a tiny village up the coast called Vilanculos. In fact the destination was somewhat further than that as there were two very basic 'lodges' outside of Vilanculous right on the beaches. When we arrived by long bumbling goat and chicken filled bus journey into Vilanculous, it was dark and the local children clamoured around us to 'assist' 'assist'!

Rather than let the tiny children carry our bags as they were insisting on doing we paid them a small fee to show us to Simbire Lodge, somewhat eponymously incorrect in its position past The Last Resort Lodge. We were lucky to have the children with us who could practically see in the dark and took great pleasure in seeing us stumbling along like mishapen camels, backpacked and blind.

We awoke the next morning from our bamboo huts to the shimmering glory of the Bazaruto Archipelago floating on the Indian Ocean in front of us. It was truly one of the most beautiful places I'd ever seen. We spent our first day chilling out on the beach sharing it with goat herders taking the easy route home with their flock and not much else.

The evening brought a choice of two adventures - a drink at the Last Resort, a short walk from our lodge or taking a longer walk into Vilanculos to check out the local 'Nightclub'. We decided to save the latter for another time. We strolled down to the Last Resort and ordered a round of Amarula to watch the sunset with. Then to my surprise and delight, the barman brought out a dish of tiny rock oysters I'm not sure whether they were the Saccostrea cuccullata which is quite rare or the more common Striostrea margaritacea, also known as the Cape Point. I do think that they were the former as they were smaller and looked more like the mangrove inhabiting oysters that is also known as the Natal Rock Oyster.

Either way, they were served as a free bar snack at this beautiful bar in Mozambique and as my travelling companions were a little nervous of trying them, I dug in for the evening.

This was back in 1995 and I do wonder, if there is anywhere in the world that would now serve oysters as a free bar snack. It seemed too good to be true then so I can't quite imagine it now. What a heavenly way to be reminded of the wonderful bivalve and to revive my love affair with these capsules of primordial ocean...

In the beginning....

1987, shacked up in a 1970's blue Bedford Campervan in Les Mimosa, an expansive pine forest campsite that felt contained from the outside world by giant redwoods and the muffled acoustics of the needle layered forest floor. This was the site of  my first experience of oysters on the south west coast of France. Retrospectively, as a now infinitely confirmed oysterphile, the location of my first experience gives me a gentle sense of pride and nostalgia.

It was a family holiday, two weeks travelling down the coast of France and into Spain at the age of 11, my first time abroad. I remember ,we'd been into the local town to purchase the ingredients for a lovely seafood dinner; an adventure in itself as we went from stall to stall of fresh delights, loading up on Crevettes, Moules and a beautiful bouillebaise despensed to order into huge jars from a large pot. Then dad said, 'Let's try some oysters.' Looking at the strange creatures that resembled flints of sedimentary rock I was intrigued.

Back under the pine trees seated behind our sturdy Bedford, Dad commenced what was to become a bloody battle. He'd never shucked oysters before and anyone watching this awful struggle would have known. He used a bone-handled penknife which was incredibly unsuitable, both due to sharpness and grip. The drama of gasping man pitched against silent bivalve added to the exoticism of the occassion for me.

Finally, amidst efforts of encouragement, dismissed assistance and plasters...dad laid out the six, yes six oysters. Such a brief reward after the toil. However, those two oysters I ate with gusto, not a rushed swallow but a considered experimental chewing of trepidation. These Crassostrea gigas were as alien to me as a distant cousin of the brother of ET's mum; yet I don't think any foodstuff has hit me with such a 'connection', a sense of life, the feeling that something other was happening other than merely/purely eating.

It was a passion which was to stick with me, yet, lay dormant for some years to come as I rode the tough rollercoaster of council estate life, adolescence and a brief relationship with McDonalds Big Mac meals as a hangover tonic...