Talk:Oyster
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- Oysters can be eaten either raw or cooked, but like all shellfish they have an extremely short shelf-life. They MUST be fresh when consumed or they can cause serious illness.
What about smoked oysters? These come in cans and seem like they'd last for years. I've been to places that carry canned smoked oysters and don't restock too often... -- Merphant
I have removed the following line from the article:
- Researchers in Oregon have invented a self-shucking oyster.
I believe that this sentence refers to this report: [1]
These aren't oysters that shell themselves. What they invented (AFAICT from a brief skim of the article) was a process to sterilise the meat without cooking it, and this happened to make the meat come away from the shell.
Almost got this spectacularly wrong in a report from reading the article, so thank goodness I checked on Google. --Suitov 14:35, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
Here's an external image of editable oysters, probably of the Ostrea genus. zh-min-nan:Image:Chhinn-o-a.jpg A-giau 06:24, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
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[edit] Oyster farming
The following needs to be cross-checked and NPOVed:
Most of Europe's supply of oysters comes from France. Oysters are popular among most countries in Europe with the possible exception of the UK. Between the World Wars, a plague ruined most of the oyster farms in the English Channel, infecting them with TB, and so consuming these oysters would cause illness to humans; so French scientists wanted to find a new type of oyster which was resistant to the TB bug, and came up with a type of oyster from China, which is what most of today's oysters are. However, the Brits seem to be still angry about the French poisoning them back in the between-wars period, so import very little amounts of French oysters Oyster farms are well-protected in the north of France, and the French government enforces strict anti-pollutian laws on the shores of Normandy and Brittany, where oyster farming is most prolific. Examples of towns which have oyster farms are Concarneau and St. Malo
I have added necessary information about Sergius Orata, probably the best farmer of oysters in History. --KesheR 00:19, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
- I think some of that may be now recognized as apochryphal. I put a citation request on the paragraph, and I'll see what I can find. Tom Harrison Talk 00:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, I quoted that from Rubicon by Tom Holland (a book about Roman Republic). It's an excellent book, so it must be true. --KesheR 01:18, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Huitre
Oyster comes from the Latin word Ostrea (as you know) and the oyster-season is from September till April. These are eight months with an "R".
Some people say that therefore the French word for oyster, "huitre", comes from huit "eight" - re "R", so eight months with an R, the oysterseason.
- There's a hidden missing "s" in huîtres that makes that "huit" unlikely. I'm generally skeptical of "Some" as a citation, anyway. --Wetman 07:25, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] 'Mercans jus' fryin' up them ersters
"In the United States today, oysters are usually cooked before consumption" Middle America is still not all America. More interestingly, it's a matter of location and social class; not the kind of information Wikipedia permits, however. The only highty-tighty cooked oyster is in oyster stew, a misnomer as the oysters are never quite simmered. Oysters were a workingman's lunch in the 19th century, eaten standing up from barrows in the street or in saloons. Smart Gold Coast and Newport driveways were paved with oystershells that wheeled traffic crushed to a fine gravel. Pearl Street in New York City was similarly "gravelled". Fresh spread, oystershell has an odor that lingers for a few weeks. In winter, barrels of oysters were shipped as far as Chicago on railroads without spoiling, though I don't see how they did it. --Wetman 07:25, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Months with R
The article claims that it is based on when the oysters spawn, then denies it regarding the Gulf of Mexico. What about the 'red tide'? "Some red tides produce large quantities of toxins, which kill fish and are accumulated by filter feeders. This bioaccumulation of toxins causes bivalves – like oysters and clams – collected in areas affected by algal blooms to be potentially dangerous for human consumption." (from the page on red tide).
The article states that the oysters filter their food, but makes no mention of the implications of it being a filter-feeder, with respect to accumulating large quantities of toxins. It seems to me there should at least be a link to the red tide.
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- To quote the article itself: "In the United Kingdom, the native variety is still held to be the finest, taking five years to mature and protected by an Act of Parliament during the May-August spawning season."
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- The Pacific or Rock oyster can be eaten all year round, due to the difference in spawning. Gretnagod 15:10, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] et all
touching on diffren topics
smoked oysters are farily well preserved fist by the smoking process itself and secondly by the fact taht they are stored in oil, that said all i can say is check the experation date.
in the US around 70% of oysters grown are from Lousiana, many of which died in the recent hurrican season after they were covered in silt, other major oyster producing areas are in the pacific northwest and surrounding san fran on the west coast, on the east coast the carolinas produce a large amount as does the northeast, the chesepeake used to be a major producer of oysters but they have really been hit hard there as of late. also oysters from certian areas are thought to be supporor to others, ie such as those from Wellfleet, MA, oysters from there are known as Wellfleet oysters and can reatail for quite a bit especially the further from the town you get, these oysters are shiped eveywhere to, and are avaible in new york, las vegas, and paris. additionally the town holds an annual "oysterfest" in the fall during which thousands of people come just to eat these oysters, ha.
oysters have of late risen drastically in price in the US largly putting them out of reach as an everyday workmens meal escept for special occiasions this is due to the fact that these days their is both a larger demand for the due to the fact that they can be shipped whereas before it was much to expensive and impractical to do such a thing and were largly eaten in local markets and not the national market. additonally the wild population of oysters was dramatically overfished and now days is almost exclusivly farmed, the wild eastern oyster is in fact in danger of being declaired an endanged species. this has dramatically risen the cost to harvest oysters themselves, and it requires a lot of backbreaking work. actually most shellfishers are cutting down on the ammount of oysters that they grow and are replacing them with hardshell clams which are growing in popularity. They say it takes about 4 times the amount of work to grow oysters as opposed to clams.
finally, yes oysters are affected by red tide and accumalate toxins just as other filter feeders do. additionlly those from lousiania are efeected by high ammounts of toxic bactaria that they accumalate, to counteract this many shellfishing compines in lousinia i'm not kidding here use some kind of pressure devise which both kills this bactaria and shuckes the oyster. this is the reason why many of the oysters avaible in middle america are preshucked, these are used by many resturants too i.e. chinese food, places serving fried oysters basically any oyster that isn't served on the halfshell in the south and middle armeica has been preshucked. additoanlly the growing times for oysters varry sometime taking as little as two year to mature.
one last thing red tide seldom kills fish but can easlly kill marine mammels suck as otters and whales which feed on filter feeders where the toxin accumlates, fish kills are often not caused by red tide, i can not say for certian that red tide dosn't kill fish. red tide itself dosn't accumalte within the mussels of annimals which ingest it it instead accumales within the digestive tracts, for example did you know that you can still eat fish and scallops that have injested red tide, just as long as you don't eat the whole kit and kobital and just eat the mussle (the most commonaly eaten part) and that there is more than one type of red tide which have diffrent effects.
