I came to my love of oysters late in life...due largely to being raised by a Mom who, raised in the South, thought the only way to prepare them was breaded and fried...I remember the glass jar full of what looked like an oozing mass of long-dead gray entrails...the horrible, overcooked smell that would emanate from the kitchen on those special days when she would lovingly bread them in cornmeal and fry them in a cast iron skillet...oysters were one of my Dad's favorite meals...
I would do anything not to eat them...once, I resorted to hiding them in my napkin so I could throw them out unobtrusively when Mom wasn't looking...it was a futile effort...she was always looking...
Oyster shells
When that didn't work, I settled on holding my nose and swallowing them whole...they were monstrous...I think my Mom finally quit making me eat them when the sight of me gagging them down became too much...for her...and probably ruined the dining experience for my Dad...I was ever so grateful to be excused from these dinners...although the smell lingered still...
I was in my thirties before I finally decided to eat a raw oyster...plucked from its chill bed, removed of its bedclothes, plated simply without sauce or seasoning, that single oyster changed me...I was bewitched from that moment...I had forever become one with the alive, salty, sweetness...the essence of the sea...