Oysters, Heaven, and Food Safety
Q: What did one oyster day to the other?
A: Heaven must be one big oyster, to have those big pearly gates!
OK, OK, corny joke.
Last night my husband took me out to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. It was one of those Friday nights we had to spend running around, and it was just more expedient to eat late rather than early. This particular Chinese restaurant (King’s Garden in High Point) really has great food, wide selection, and AWESOME sushi. I could make a meal just of the sushi bar, especially when they’ve got spicy stuff going on. 
And yes… fish which has been cooked, but not by heat. (Some sushi is “raw”… actually, I think sushi is the wrong term for the raw stuff, but hey, I’m an American. I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’ll eat it if it’s good.)
This particular restaurant also serves raw oysters on the half-shell. I haven’t quite worked up the courage to eat one yet, because I’ve always been taught that oysters raw = DANGER. This morning I get up and find this website about how all that’s changing.
Gulf oysters are apparently much safer to eat than their counterparts, because the Gulf oyster folks do things a little differently. They use several different processes to treat the oysters before they are shipped. The consumer can’t tell a difference in taste, but apparently even at-risk folks are able to eat them without getting sick! Next time we go to King’s Garden, I’ll try some oysters (but only if they’re gulf oysters!)
March 24th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Raw oysters carry a small risk of transmission of one kind of hepatitis, I forget which, and that’s why I quit eating them. Turns out, though, you can reduce your risk of catching it by up to 90% by having a glass of wine. Which is, alas, why I still won’t eat raw oysters.
Oh, and it’s sashimi that’s the raw fish. It’s all taken from previously frozen stuff, to kill parasites. And they take sashimi from the inside, so there’s no damage to the texture.
And if you like spicy food, see if you can get your hands on some Ethiopian cuisine. Sheer bliss. If you’re ever in Toronto, there’s a restaurant right by my place.