WIZARD AT OPENING OYSTERS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 208, 30 May 1936, Page 13

WIZARD AT OPENING OYSTERS

A Skilful Profession EATERS SOMETIMES GET THE PEARLS He was a professional oyster-opener. Sleeves rolled up. and .short-bladed knife in hand, he stood behind a bench gritty with sand and debris from the floor of Foveaux Strait. Close at hand stood a basin of water, and beside him a bulging sack, redolent of the seashore at low tide, and emitting occasionally the same undertone cracklings and whisperings as mussel-grown rocks left bare by the ebb. But such slight noises were drowned by the rumble of Wellington traffic outside. He was a wizard at his work. With what appeared an easy gesture, he slid the knife between the edges of a shell, twisted it, and the oytser opened in bis hand, the fish remaining fast, on the flat half. He plunged it into the basin to wash*it, then placed it on a plate. A couple of minutes later it had been joined by five others, and a hungry gourmet, was sprinkling chile vinegar and red pepper over them. "Yes,” he conceded, "it looks easy, but it’s a knack that takes a lot of acquiring. Some people chop themselves and the oysters to pieces. A good opener never cuts the oyster. Some people just cau't hold the oyster in their hand, so they can’t make such a clean job of it. “I dare say it is possible for a man to open eight sacks in a day, but I don’t believe he could do them really well. It might be managed, cutting the oysters right off the shells into a basin of water, but not opening them like this and washing them individually. I don’t reckon you can make a first-class job of opening a sackful of oysters in less than, say, three hours and a half. Oyster-eating Record. “Quicker eaten than opened I A good eater can tuck away four or live dozen oysters. The local record, I believe, is 15 dozen at a sitting. I saw that done here iu Wellington. But the New Zealand record, and it’s the world’s record, is 28J dozen, eaten by a man called Bradshaw, at Bluff. Oysters weigh light, so it’s not as big a meal as it looks at first glance. Twelve oysters weigh four ounces; you can work it out from that. “Is it true that real epicures like to swallow their oysters alive?” "Well, you must eat oysters freshkilled. They won't keep dead. They’re still"alive in the shell—-see!” He picked out an oyster, which was gaping slightly, and thrust the knife-blade inside. The nacre lips closed hard on the knife, so that it took a strong pull to withdraw it. “Cutting the muscle kills them,” he continued; “so they're actually dead on the plate, though they do sometimes appear to wince when you pour on the vinegar. “The big Bluff oysters keep five days in the shell. Actually, they seldom have to keep that long. The ketches fish them out of the sea and bring them into Bluff on Sunday morning and they will be landed at Wellington on Tuesday. The little rock oysters last longer; they don't gape and let the water run out. So they’ll keep a fortnight in the sack. About Pearls. “Pearls! Plenty of ’em. Only very few are good ones. Mostly they turn out to be just the little black seed pearls. But three weeks ago a Wellington man found a fine one, nice in colour and nice in shape, well worth the mounting. And a. woman who took home a carton of oysters found three pearls in one oyster the other day. The trouble is, most people don’t chew their oysters; they just swallow them. So down goes pearl and all. I think most of the pearls go that way. There was a man I knew who simply couldn’t help finding pearls; he came on them time after time, because he chewed each mouthful the orthodox two-and-thirty times. The openers don't find them, because the pearl lies buried in the muscle of the oyster. But I wouldn’t like you to think there’s much likelihood of your making a fortune eating oysters for the pearls in them. I don’t believe It’s even a sporting chance. Oysters are more paying, believe me. to open than to eat.”