Slurp ‘Em
There are so many great shuckers who can bring oysters to your wedding reception or rehearsal dinner. All you need to do is add lemon, cocktail sauce, or mignonette.
Oysters, A Love Story
There’s a great quote from H.L. Mencken about the magic of Maryland oysters. “A magnificent, matchless reptile! Hard to swallow? Dangerous? Perhaps to the novice, the dastard,” wrote The Baltimore Sun columnist in 1913. “But to the veteran of the raw bar, the man of trained and lusty esophagus, a thing of prolonged and kaleidoscopic flavors, a slow slipping saturnalia, a delirium of joy!” Those last three words are how we feel about these small but mighty bivalves. We know, we know—they’re not for everyone. But that’s kinda why we love them. Weird and wonderful, somehow both exotic and quotidian, they inspire big emotions. There are the nervous squeals that come with a newbie’s first slurp. And also, the delighted sigh after flipping over the final empty shell after sharing a few dozen with friends. The jury’s out over whether they’re actual aphrodisiacs, as rumor has it, but they certainly make a splash at any wedding. Besides, if you’re getting married in these parts, on the beautiful shores of our Chesapeake Bay, there are few edible experiences that so root us into our sense of place. Support your local oyster farms by ordering those hailing from the brackish waters of our nation’s largest estuary. They’re a little salty, a little sweet—much like Baltimore.
– Lydia Woolever, Baltimore magazine senior editor
