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Food Food & Drink

Aw, shucks

They’re fun to eat, succulent and sexy, and with new eateries serving them daily, oysters are more popular than ever. But are “buck-a-shuck” promos sucking the juice out of a once refined food?

“Oysters,” wrote M.F.K. Fisher in her 1941 book, Consider The Oyster, “have been eaten with perhaps a wider variety of beverages than almost any other dish I can think of… and less disastrously. They lend themselves to the whims of every cool and temperate climate, so that one can drink wine with them, another beer, and another fermented buttermilk, and no one will be wrong.”

In cool, temperate (or even cold, unforgiving) Toronto, the rise of mixology and cocktail culture has led to the corresponding popularity of oysters. You can totter into a bar in any Hogtown neighbourhood on any weeknight and be treated to an iced tray of mollusks on the half-shell for as little as a dollar apiece. They’re the perfect accompaniment to a light beer, a dry Chablis or an $18 absinthe-based concoction.

“It’s becoming a popular promotion,” says Fan Zhang, chef and co-owner of Mr. Flamingo (1265 Dundas West, 647-351-1100, mrflamingo.ca), of “buck-a-shuck” deals. “The flavour profile of an oyster pairs well with a lot of cocktails.”

“You can play with it,” says barman/oyster shucker Brenden Dowhaniuk of Parkdale speakeasy-chic cocktail/seafood bar Geraldine (1564 Queen West, 647-352-8815, geraldinetoronto.com). “Vermouth’s delicious with oysters. Gin’s delicious with oysters – anything that’s got herbal notes.”

Dowhaniuk sets me up with a “shucker’s choice” platter of a half-dozen oysters, a mix of varieties from the U.S. east coast (brinier, more mineral notes) and BC (creamier, more vegetable flavours). 

A good oyster, like a good cocktail, is almost transporting, densely rich and laced with subtle regional particularities revealing their point of harvest. 

“A lot of people who eat Fanny Bays,” says Dowhaniuk, referring to oysters farmed near their namesake hamlet on the east side of Vancouver Island, “talk about their tasting like a misty day in Vancouver. It’s nostalgic for them.”

But forget all the Proustian stuff about memories flooding back via the palate. There’s something excitingly sensuous – even a bit sexy – about slugging back oysters on the half-shell: the smell of the brine wafting up to the nose, the tang of the juice (or liquor, as it’s called) and the fortifying effect of the meat, its flavours playing in the mouth, on the tongue and the back of your throat as those deliciously slimy guys slither down to your belly. No wonder they’re considered an aphrodisiac.

It’s a feeling that a place like the low-key, dimly lit Geraldine plays to perfectly. It doesn’t go in for buck-a-shuck bargains, preferring to cultivate an atmosphere of almost cartoonish elegance, recalling the days when the glugging of bivalves was considered a mark of refinement. 

The atmosphere at Honest Weight (2766 Dundas West, 416-604-9992, honestweight.ca), a new oyster bar/restaurant/fishmonger in the Junction, is considerably more casual. But owner John Bil is still plenty serious about seafood. 

“I pray for a world where ‘buck’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘shuck,'” he says. “It doesn’t make any sense. You take something that takes five years to grow, that you harvest by hand, that is historically one of the most premium food items, and you sell it at cost? You don’t do that with steaks. You never see anyone selling a steak at cost.”

Bil’s casual demeanour belies his earnestness and keen interest in expanding Toronto’s shellfish palette. And his career path – high school dropout turned bike courier turned oyster farmer turned restaurateur – shows why.

Beyond go-tos like oysters, halibut and salmon, Honest Weight deals in odder seafood offerings like whelks, limpets and raw clams – the next level for seasoned shell-slurpers long accustomed to the cold, wiggly, instantly bracing smack of oyster meat. While wholesalers like Bil or Oyster Boy’s Adam Colquhoun see a bottom-line benefit from the buck-a-shuck trend, they worry it undermines the value of a notoriously labour-intensive crop. 

“People don’t realize the work that goes into farming oysters,” says Colquhoun, who supplies more than 100 Toronto restaurants, bars and hotels. “I’m very close to all the farmers, and I want them to keep getting the best price so we always have oysters.”

For Mr. Flamingo’s Zhang, buck-a-shuck promos are a way to get people in the door – a “loss leader,” as they say in retail. 

“The idea is that oysters are so appetizing that a patron will be inclined to also order a meal and have some drinks,” he says. “Only a sociopath would go to a buck-a-shuck night and just have a platter of oysters.”

Don’t miss: Five oyster bars worth shelling out for.

food@nowtoronto.com

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