Archived Article By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published November 25, 2007 What Happened To Ice-Cold Oysters? The Little Chill I'm hearing a new complaint from oyster eaters lately. I thought it was an aberration at first, because it was directed against the best oyster houses in town, by different people. Then it happened to me. At a good place. And it happened again, and again, at other good places. So I think there may be something going on. Raw oysters are not always being served cold. Now, I'm sure they're being stored under refrigeration. Nobody--certainly not any of the oyster houses where this has happened to me--would be dumb enough to store oysters outside a cooler, the way they were in the bad old days. But there's cold, and then there's ice-cold. And the difference is a big thing when it comes to oysters. Even though the best part of the oyster season (which is well underway) is when it's cold outside. But lately my correspondents and I have been served oysters at sushi temperature. Sushi should be warmer than ice-cold. But not oysters. The colder the better. (Up to a point. At a party at the Bourbon House last year, oysters that had obviously been pre-shucked and put into a cooler had been chilled down to the point that some were actually frozen on top.) A friend who is a big fan of the usually excellent oyster bar at the Bourbon House was the first to point out what may be the culprit. He said that he's noticed lately that many oyster bars pile the oysters right on top of the ice in the trough, instead of burying the oysters in the ice. "That's if they have ice in there at all!" he adds. "I see some places just taking a few at a time out of the refrigerator and putting them out there." Another explanation is an old one. If you're sitting at a table instead of standing at the oyster bar, the chances are good that your oysters were previously shucked, in the gaps between oyster bar customers. Oysters at the table are rarely as good as those at the bar, for this reason. Indeed, all my underchilled oysters were served at the table. (Although many very cold oysters appeared there, too--often on a bed of ice.) Solution: If you get a batch of raw ones that aren't cold enough, send them back. They won't go to waste--the kitchen needs plenty of oysters for the fryer. But that will get their attention. And maybe the oyster bars will get a little more rigorous about this jewel in our crown of local delicacies. © 2007 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com