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Post by traveler63 on Jul 20, 2009 16:14:20 GMT
Just curious as to if you enjoy eating shell fish? Or do you have any stories of how you came to like or dislike shellfish. Do you eat them cooked or raw or both or neither? Here is my story about shellfish.
I grew up in Southern California. My parents were from Texas and Oklahoma. My mom would cook every night but she and my dad were a meat and potatoes kind of family. A lot of her cooking was sort of southern, okra,tomatoes, fried potatoes beans, etc. So, my first introduction to fish or shellfish didn't come until of was nearly grown. I had a girlfriend who introduced me to shrimp thru a shrimp salad. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I was 18.
Fast forward to 1968. I met Kirk thru my parents, in a little town called Parker Arizona. It was the typical "come home for the weekend(I was living in Anaheim, California), I have a nice guy I want you to meet. So, one thing led to another, and I ended up moving back home. I don't remember how it came up but I asked him what he would like to me to cook for him. He said I really haven't had any good Oyster Stew in a long time. Well, Parker AZ is not exactly in the mainstream( 2 hours west of Phoenix, in the middle of nowhere). I found canned whole oysters and so I proceeded with the recipe. The oysters were big, now remember, I had not experience with anything remotely called shellfish. I proceeded to proudly present the finished dish. He thought it was pretty tasty and a good first time with the recipe, the only thing that he said negative was why did I cut the beautiful big oysters up,!!!!! You see, I had taken the oysters which were larger than a U. S. quarter and carefully chopped them up.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2009 16:46:01 GMT
I have always loved all shellfish and when I was little, scallops were my absolute favorite whenever we went to a restaurant, because unlike shrimp, crabs, oysters, etc., they were something that I didn't get at home.
Most unfortunately, I got very sick once after eating scallops (I doubt if it was the fault of the scallops, but who knows?), puked my guts out, and could not look at a scallop for the next ten years. I'm not sure exactly how I overcame my aversion, but I was happy when it ended and now I love scallops again as much as I ever did.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2009 16:48:04 GMT
I had no idea there was such a thing as canned oysters. I grew up with all manner of shellfish available . Where I am now we don't have fresh clams or lobster or bay scallops(which I probably miss the most) but beaucoup fresh shrimp,crawfish and oysters. I could take or leave mussels.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2009 16:52:01 GMT
All of the canned oysters that I have seen in my life come from two places: Washington State (or is it Oregon?) and South Korea.
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Post by traveler63 on Jul 20, 2009 17:38:03 GMT
Remember this was 41 or 42 years ago. I really haven't looked for canned(actually they were in glass bottles) since because even here in Tucson, we can get live ones, but you really have to be careful.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2009 17:45:28 GMT
In the Gulf of Mexico area, you can find jars of fresh shucked oysters on ice at the supermarkets. When I was going to university in Los Angeles, there was also a place in Watts where we (me and this guy from Louisiana) would go on Tuesday when they had a refrigerated truck coming in from New Orleans, which also had jars of fresh oysters. It was called the Louisiana Fish House Market.
I had the impression that we were the only white people who ever went there, but they smilingly expected us and considered us to be full fledged members of the gulf oyster appreciation society. Of course, the guy from Louisiana would sometimes go into tirades about how bayou oysters were ten times better than gulf oysters and why the hell didn't they have bayou oysters more regularly. (Bayou oysters are never salty, because the bayou water is only brackish, and it really does make a big difference in taste.)
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 20, 2009 17:59:06 GMT
I adore shellfish. I guess crawfish are my favorite with crab running a close second, but I love all of them. I can get great seafood cocktails here that aren't at all like the ones served in the US, but dearly miss the boiled craws/shrimp/crabs of the US gulf coast and the raw oysters there. There are good oysters here, but always encountered already shucked.
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Post by cigalechanta on Jul 20, 2009 18:17:52 GMT
I'm an oyster fanatic. One year I went to Belon to taste the oyster at its home. We have wonderful oysters here too.
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Post by hwinpp on Jul 21, 2009 4:10:38 GMT
I like all shellfish. I started out collecting clams with the family on tidal mudflats in Malaysia. Years later on I discovered you could get a full meal of fresh oysters in the oyster producing Atlantic regions of France by just turning up when the fishermen arrived and trying here and there (especially in La Rochelle). After that I always had an oyster knife with a wood handle whenever I went to France. It was also in France that I discovered that a lot of shellfish can be eaten raw. I started appreciating sea urchin roe on a visit to a friend who lived on Mallorca. We'd swim out to a little rock every morning with a pocket knife and a teaspoon and then eat all the urchins we could find. He showed me how to tell the females from the males. We made a mistake though, we threw the dead shells on land and after a day the rock started smelling... You just wait until I'm back from Saigon. Just down the street from my hotel there's a hole- in- the- wall shellfish and mud crab restaurant. When I post pics from there you'll all be drooling! But you'll have to be patient until the middle of October
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 21, 2009 5:00:22 GMT
When I was @ 9 or 10 years old, my family spent a summer in Torremolinos. This was long before condos, vacation packages, etc., and a magical time for us kids.
One morning my brother & I got up really early and went out on the low tide and collected a bunch of mussels in buckets. We brought them back to the house and put them on the marble-topped table on the terrace, thinking how pleased our parents would be to have them. Then we went off to play.
The mussels were forgotten until sometime around noon, when my parents brought friends out to the terrace for drinks. They quickly adjourned back into the house, as the mussels had climbed out of the buckets in the sun and had gotten glued to the hot marble. It didn't smell good.
I remember wading out into the water there, and my mother would show us how to get snails and limpets and extract the meat with a pin to eat right there with the water foaming about our legs.
I tried and enjoyed sea urchin as a child, but don't remember where or when.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2009 11:04:47 GMT
Going "clamming" was a family event for us. We had clam rakes and these heavy metal baskets and would go at low tide to different spots. I have this vivid memory of my father opening up the little cherrystone clams with his pocketknife and eating them right on the spot there in the water. The first time I tasted one this way is so strong in my mind. It was slightly chilled and just the right degree of saltiness. No clam has ever tasted quite like that ever since.
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Post by cigalechanta on Jul 21, 2009 15:36:15 GMT
I tasted my first sea urchin in Cassis but they are difficult to find here in markets.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2009 16:52:34 GMT
I think I have only eaten sea urchin once (at the home of an Antillean friend), and I liked it, but I can't imagine preparing it myself. I wouldn't know where to begin (and don't say 'just Google it!').
However, when the Countess paid for the expensive Japanese meal 5 months ago, I did have sea urchin sauce on my squid salad.
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Post by cigalechanta on Jul 21, 2009 17:05:31 GMT
you simply cut it in half and squeeze lemon juice! if you don't want to cook them Had them that way in Cassis and in Paris at Pruniers. and here at home.
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Post by hwinpp on Jul 22, 2009 2:38:50 GMT
Yeah, no need to google it K2!
Take a simple knife and pierce the shell, then cut along the 'equator'. Then use the teaspoon to scrape out the orangy eggs.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2009 3:33:07 GMT
hw,you should have a cooking show or blog with your vast knowledge. Ever think about it?
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Post by hwinpp on Jul 22, 2009 4:35:42 GMT
Nothing like some of you all.
I am especially disappointed I never knew about the diversity of Mexican food!
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 22, 2009 4:38:43 GMT
You will just have to come here & find out more, HW. Bring your girlfriend -- she'll probably be fascinated by the cooking techniques.
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Post by Don Cuevas on Jul 22, 2009 12:52:44 GMT
I don't know how I became aware of clams when I was a little kid back in Brooklyn. But one day, my father took me to his cousin's seafood bar and restaurant along the dock at Sheepshead Bay, which is sort of near Coney Island (the latter scene of many delightful, junk-food filled childhood excursions.) The cousin pulled a raw clam in the shell out of a bin of murky brine, and handed it to me. I don't recall that it was even opened. I was instructed to sip the liquor. Fehhhhh! It was saltwater! I couldn't eat it. Whle living in a 3-family house on 83rd street in Brooklyn, our Italian American neighbor, Minnie, prepared a wonderful dish of squid with garlicky, Parmesan-ey , parsleyed breadcrumbs, which we kids picked at until it was mostly gone. She had to start all over again. (Sure, it's seafood, but not specifically oysters or clams. So, sue me. ;D ) (I remember Minnie had teased us by dangling and shaking the whole, raw squid at us. It made an indelible impression.) A few years later, while on a visit to Miami Beach, we went out one evening to what was to me a wonderful restaurant, called "The Lighthouse". It was north of MB proper, I think near Haulover Point. The large live turtle in the tank was really cool, for a start, and on the menu was the exotic dish, "Clams Casino". Of course, I ordered that. It was briny and bacony at the same time. I loved it for its exoticness. I may have had it one other time since then. Now as I think of it, I probably ate The CC as an appetizer for a main course. I also remember that I was allowed to have coffee with dessert, and the real, heavy cream made it extra rich. I don't know where I had my first raw oyster, but I do remember the first fried ones I ever tried. I was enjoying them, but then I bit into one and looked at the green stuff inside, which put me off for a moment, but not for long. There were occasional family outings to Savin Rock (noted for its amusement park), at West Haven, CT, where the legendary fried food heaven, Jimmy's of Savin Rock is/was located. (The present restaurant has gentrified itself, they say, and is quite unlike the raffish shack on a littered parking lot hat we enjoyed so much.) We'd eat fried shrimp, clams but never oysters, if I recall. Two or three years ago, we met my wife's oldest sister at Grand Central Station in Manhattan, where we indulged in a plate of exotic and very expensve oysters, followed by a very rich Oyster Pan Roast. The OPR is not exactly what it sounds like, but an enriched and well seasoned variety of oyster stew, cooked in special steam heated pans. Oyster Pan Roast Fast forwarding to the near present, one of the best seafood meals in memory was the one that we enoyed in May with our niece and her husband in East Windsor Locks, CT at The Maine Seafood Market Restaurant. I started with a dozen mixed raw clams and oysters on the half shell, and for a main ;-) course, a huge plate of deep fried Whole Belly Clams. I won't describe the sides. Raw Shellfish Platter Fried Whole Belly Clams (Someone else's picture; Thanks!) Damn! This is sheer Food Porn. I have to go eat now. Cornbread, beans, sliced tomatoes and onions. Ate shrimp and octopus a la Diabla last Sunday. Bye!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2009 15:19:06 GMT
My mother's specialty was Clam's Casino or sometimes called Deviled Clams. They were far superior to any I've ever had in a restaurant in that she didn't use hardly any bread crumbs. I'm always disappointed when I order them and get this gummy mess. I have a vivid recall of her using one of those old metal meat grinder type contraptions that you use a table vise on the kitchen counter to mince the clams. She would always mince a ton of them and use in chowders(Manhattan style) to freeze.
A really dear friend of mine worked at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station and to this day says she made more money there then at any other job she ever had. It's been there forever.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2009 17:41:47 GMT
Clams were not part of my life until I was older, except for the mysterious cans of clam chowder soup.
I fear that most of the clams I have eaten have been the fried clams at Howard Johnson's. They are not much consumed in France although they have a name: palourdes
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Post by Don Cuevas on Jul 22, 2009 20:12:02 GMT
The Clams Casino I've had no bread crumbs. Really, they didn't have much substance to them, thus, good for an appetizer.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2009 2:11:52 GMT
I would like to pay homage to the bay scallop as it is one of the finer morsels of just sweet tender bliss. Bay scallops are smaller then their cousin the sea scallop and are harvested out of the bays of the Atlantic Coast in autumn. Along with being smaller and sweeter their texture is firmer. I prefer them just pan seared and with out the fussy cream sauces . They were virtually near extinction at one point due to a "red tide" or maybe it was a "brown tide". Regardless ,for a time there they were very hard to get and very pricey. I like sea scallops particularly if I know they are fresh. I remember my mother warning me that many restaurants would use cookie cutters and try to pass off some types of fish like monkfish as sea scallops. Undiscerning palates went undetected especially when slathered with cream etc.
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Post by imec on Jul 23, 2009 9:12:08 GMT
Had a REALLY bad oyster in Bahrain once and didn't go near them for years. I eventually got over it and am in love with them again. Raspberry Points are my favorite.
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Post by hwinpp on Jul 23, 2009 9:17:41 GMT
I've had a couple of bad oysters but I notice before swallowing. I sort of smell them with my tongue, sounds funny I know. They're sulfurous. Same thing with clams.
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Post by imec on Jul 23, 2009 9:25:27 GMT
hwinpp, you'll notice I said "had" not "ate". It came out of my mouth VERY quickly and my fellow diners were very lucky they didn't get any on 'em. I've since developed the habit of sniffing first.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2009 11:24:18 GMT
I had this happen with mussels twice and yes,I did ingest them. I have no great love for mussels.
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Post by spindrift on Jul 23, 2009 16:56:18 GMT
I ate my first clams in Mexico in what was then a tiny seaside resort of Zihuatanego. This was back in the mid 70s. Unfortunately I was very very ill but that didn't put me off them.
I've never got over the sheer variety of oysters for sale in France. England has nothing like it. I'm thinking of several Parisian restaurants but I can't remember exactly where. Irish Galway/Connemara oysters are good too. If they're small I can eat 2 dozen at one sitting. The best seafood of all is in Australia (in my limited opinion). I'll never ever forget the mud crabs and other delights at the Brisbane fish market. I also enjoyed Clams cooked with chilli in Albuferia, Portugal.
I detest whelks. When I stay with my friend near Bergerac he persists in keeping them in the fridge, ready cooked and stinking to high heaven. He pretends to find them delicious ;D
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Post by bazfaz on Jul 23, 2009 17:09:53 GMT
I love oysters. I love them when they get big enough to chew so you get full value out of them.
Alas, last year I bought oysters that were too big for Spindrift to eat. Poor Grecian and I had to force ourselves to eat her plateful too.
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Post by spindrift on Jul 23, 2009 17:18:44 GMT
They were the size of small plates! No way could I swallow them in one go! They were Slipper Oysters!
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