The Oyster as Food.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 932, 6 April 1881, Page 3

The Oyster as Food.

Possibly, before our next issue, Gisborne will be redundantly supplied with oysters. The season commenced on the Ist instant, and from the arrangements made by several houses in town to cater for their customers’ comfort, and supply of their demands, it is expected that large calls will be made on their resources. We hear that large orders are on the way from Stewart’s Island, Queen Charlotte’s Sound, and from Auckland, so that there will be no lack of this most popular bi-valve. A writer, in praising the oyster says : — Oysters are of all sizes, and there are some so large that they require to be carved. In New York, the paradise of oyster eaters, they range from the size of a half-crown to five or six inches long. The. shores of Long Island, a distance round of 115 miles, are one continuous oyster field, while the one State of Virginia is said to possess nearly 2,000,000 acres of oyster beds. The Americans are great lovers of the bivalve, which is probably one of the most wholesome of forms of easy nourishment which can possibly be taken. In a stew with milk, and a little oatmeal, or as soup, they are especially good for invalids, and when one can take nothing else, he can usually relish oysters. And, as all gastronomers know, they rather increase than diminish appetite ; hence the modern French practice of taking half a dozen before the soup is served. “ There is no alimentary substance,” says a French “ not even excepting bread, which does not produce indigestion under’given circumstances, but ovsters never.

We may eat them to-day, to-morrow, eat them always and in profusion, without fear of indigestion.” The few who cannot eat them, and there are such, are really to be commiserated. How highly they are esteemed in some countries is shown by the fact that some years ago they cost in St. Petersburg a paper rouble, or about a shilling each ; in Stockholm, fivepence each. In England only two or three years ago they had risen to nearly four-fifths of the latter price ; but now thanks to the extensive cultivation, and to the importation of excellent American oysters on a large scale, they are within the reach of all.