A FEAST ISN'T ALWAYS ENOUGH

 

I’ve been slightly worried about the fish man down at the market.  The last few times I asked him for oysters he didn’t have any and he said he was having trouble getting them.  Well, the oyster shortage is over, at least for now, and on Saturday I bought a dozen and they were very fine.

Photo by Caroline Gannon.

 

They were £1,50 each, which was what I expected to pay, but it did cross my mind that 18 quid for two starters was a bit steep; though when you think you can expect to pay several quid for a single oyster in a restaurant, it seems a lot more reasonable. Bibendum is currently charging £4.50 for a Maldon oyster (which is what I believe my fish man sells) and they’re charging £8.50 for a Gillardeau.

 

All of which, naturally, reminded me of Brillat-Savarin and his oyster anecdote.  In the transaltion I have in front of me this reads. 

‘In 1798 I was at Versailles as a commissary of the Directory, and frequently met M. Laperte, greffier of the count of the department. He was very fond of oysters, and used to complain that he had never had enough.

‘I resolved to procure him this satisfaction, and invited him to dine with me on the next day.

‘He came. I kept company with him to the tenth dozen, after which I let him go on alone. He managed to eat thirty-two dozen within an hour for the person who opened them was not very skilful.

      ‘In the interim, I was idle, and as that is always a painful state at the table, I stopped him at the moment when he was in full swing. "Mon cher," said I, "you will not to-day eat as many oysters as you meant—let us dine." We did so, and he acted as if he had fasted for a week.’

      I’ve often had ‘enough’ oysters but I’ve always thought I could manage a couple  more, though perhaps not another 32 dozen.

 

Thirty two dozen is 384 – that’s a lot of oysters, and quite an expense even at £1.50 each, let alone at Gillardeau rates. I don’t know how much money a commissary of the Directory earned in 1798, or whether he had a generous expense account, but the final bill would surely have stung.

 

I was also taken by that line ‘the person who opened them was not very skilful’ which reminded me of the food writer Christopher Hurst, who I used to meet one in a while though I haven’t seen him for years.  When he was writing for the Independent I think it was, he got roped in to an oyster-opening contest, at Bibendum.  It may have been for charity.  He was strictly an amateur and he found himself up against the professionals. I’m pretty sure Tom Parker Bowles was one of them – he seemed a nice lad.

Of course the pros trounced poor Christopher, and I do remember Christopher looking ashen and humiliated afterwards, and saying the whole thing was jolly unfair. Which it was.  I imagine he’s got over it by now, though on the night it looked like something he might never get over at all.