Consider Six Oysters (Thoughts from 2014 at Burdock & Co.)
Since the next episode of the Cheftimony podcast will have lots of talk about oysters, it feels like the right time to post an older piece, an essay I wrote while volunteering at Burdock & Co in 2014, a year before I started actually working as a cook...
Consider six oysters. Just six. Had the order been for a full dozen, it would have been trouble. But six oysters present no problem to someone who's worked six years in three of Vancouver's best kitchens. An oyster a year. Two oysters per kitchen. Six oysters.
But here's the thing: it's never just six oysters. And I'm not a chef.
The restaurant where I don't work is on the east side of Vancouver's Main Street. We have an open kitchen - a bar top with wine glasses on one side, line fridges under a countertop on the other. The guests sit behind the glasses. The cooks stand behind the fridges.
We keep the oysters in the third fridge to the right, if you stand on the cooks' side as I do. They are in a deep, narrow container. They are fresh, living and delicious. Sometimes we send oysters to our guests plainly, on the shell. And sometimes we send oysters on a plate with no shells, but with radishes, a sake-flavoured ice and an emulsion made from kasu, the delicious leftovers from sake fermentation. The oysters go on that plate beautifully and they go on that plate quickly. Today is a radish and sake day.
When I started cooking as a staigiaire – an unpaid intern in a commercial kitchen - it was at a restaurant that pioneered direct connections with local producers. I hit the jackpot with the chef in charge. She was welcoming, patient and, I've always suspected, bemused. I've been with her since, and when Chef opened her own spot on Main Street, I was in. I'm now there every Sunday I can be, for the meditation of prep and the endurance of service. My colleagues – the real cooks – are the ideal counterpoint to the other avocation I know so well.
It's Sunday. Prep is done, and order tickets are printing. Hear the shout of the chef to my right: “Ordering new - oysters!” Respond in kitchen French: “Oysters, oui!” Check the other orders. Prioritize. Somebody wants the potatoes, but the oysters are definitely picked up, which means they go out now.
I'm going to tell you how I shuck oysters, and I make no claim to expertise. I strive for efficiency and an unpunctured left palm, although I have found more than that in the practice. Fold kitchen towel in half lengthwise, and in half again. Place oyster on right side of towel, shallow side pointing left, deeper side pointing right. Fold towel over oyster with left hand, take oyster knife in right. Peer beneath glasses. Lights are low during service, candles flicker on the bar, and I wear glasses instead of contacts so I can look at the oysters under the lenses and deny the effect of time on near sight. I'm glad I found the oysters when I did.
Find the tiny separation between top shell and bottom shell on the deep end of the oyster. Knife tip in, just. Breathe. Twist knife. Pop top shell from bottom. Slide knife gently under top shell to sever connecting muscle. Remove top shell, spin oyster, slice gently between oyster and bottom shell to sever second connecting muscle. Inspect for grit. Done. Second oyster. Knife tip in, breathe, twist. Shatter. This happens, particularly with west coast oysters whose shells are wavy, gorgeous and brittle. Discard. Repeat.
“Picking up potatoes on three!” Chest tightens. How are oysters and potatoes the source of my stress? How is this what matters? The only paper anywhere in sight is the prep list, and that's just a tally of jobs we've already done. But shattering shells do matter. Minutes matter. And right now, oysters matter. The oysters keep me here, with them. Knife tip in, breathe, twist, pop. Slice, spin, slice. Repeat. Three more. Keep going. Get plate, the cold one from the other fridge. Shake bottle of kasu emulsion. Think about your plating. Don't rush this part.
If you allow yourself, you can squeeze the universe into an oyster. There is a lot going on in a well-plated half dozen bivalves. There is anxiety and practice, ecosystem and art. There is struggle and beauty, nourishment and death. Most of all, there is reassurance. Humans have eaten oysters for thousands of years, cooks have worked with them for hundreds, and I've plated them for six. I'm going to keep going, and if we're sensible about it, so will the oysters.
Grab that emulsion. Dot here, dot there, smaller, larger, not uniform. Slice radishes, some thin, others in half on the bias. Oysters and radishes on plate. Sake ice, micro greens, bird's eye view of presentation. It looks good, better than last week. “Service please!” Another part of the continuum: ocean to city, cook to server, server to guest. Over and over.
Six minutes spent. Too long for the oysters, but in any lawyer's office those six minutes are merely a point one. That's one tenth of one hour - parsed, recorded and billed. That's the other world I know. Consider those six minutes. You can develop a strange relationship with time when you charge for it in increments of hours, measured in tenths, six minutes at a go. It can hide from you those things that don't meet your own ever-higher measure of what six minutes of your life are worth.
Six minutes in the office, six oysters in the kitchen. This is the best Sunday going.