Enjoying Oysters with Chef Mike McCarty

From across the table, raw oysters are suggested. You want to join the party and be game enough to eat your share. After all, oysters are delicious…right? For many, the challenge with oysters is getting over the fear of eating raw, sometimes slimy-looking seafood. Oysters do have the potential to spread listeria, as many uncooked foods do. They're also safely sealed inside their shells, meaning you'll need to be handy with a knife to get through any unshucked oysters. In short, people have concerns about oysters that make it all too easy to pass this seafood by.

Enter Chef Mike McCarty. At 45, McCarty has whole reefs of oysters behind him. He got his first kitchen job at 16, has staged at the Charleston, S.C., seafood temple The Ordinary,¹ among others, and is executive chef and a managing partner at The Lobster Trap² in the foodie destination town of Asheville, N.C.

"Oysters are a major focus at this restaurant," Chef Mike says. On a busy night, they'll shuck as many as 450 "rocks" to order, and he's joined us to help alleviate some common oyster fears.

Are Oysters Dangerous?

Many people worry that oysters are going to make them sick, or maybe even kill them. Are you going to die from eating oysters, though? Chef Mike's response: Not from eating the freshest food on earth, you won't.

"The oysters we buy are from licensed sources," he explains. "They're flown in daily to our supplier, who brings them to us the same day from one mile away. We ensure they're stored between 38 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and we taste-test them for temperature as well before serving them. We shuck them to order. If you think about it, there's really nothing fresher that you could be eating."

Freshness is, of course, not the only concern. In the words of every menu of every fresh shellfish-serving restaurant in every state in the Union, consuming it raw "may increase your risk of foodborne illness, especially if you have a medical condition."

Why? Because oysters, like all bivalves, are filter feeders. They sieve their food from water they pump through their bodies, which makes them especially vulnerable to environmental changes and contaminants. Indeed from the 1950s on, diseases and overharvesting wiped out much of the native oyster population in America, challenging both the supply to diners and their confidence in eating them. By the 1980s, Americans had all but stopped ordering fresh oysters.

Three factors have reversed that trend, though: Better water quality; new aquaculture techniques and facilities that have developed new varieties of oysters, including hybrids whose meat is safe all year round; and regulation,³ by the FDA and other agencies, of everything from the health of shellfish beds to the temperature at which oysters are shipped and stored. So you can relax and order up, according to Chef Mike.

When Should I Throw Oysters Out?

Meanwhile, if you're preparing oysters to eat at home, here are a few professional tips:

• Tap two oysters together. If one's shell makes a hollow sound, the oyster in it is dead. Throw it out.
• If you're not serving oysters immediately, you can refrigerate them for a few days at 40 degrees Fahrenheit, deep-side down, in an open container covered with damp newspapers or a damp towel. The colder they are, the easier they are to shuck. Shuck them 2 hours or less before serving.
• If you can't get an oyster to open, throw it out.
• If you immerse live oysters in fresh water or melted ice, they'll die. Throw them out.

With all this professional advice in your arsenal, crack into some oysters with confidence.

References

1. Eat the Ordinary. The Ordinary. Accessed December 2021.
2. The Lobster Trap. The Lobster Trap. Accessed December 2021.
3. Seafood Regulatory Oversight. Seafood Health Facts. Accessed December 2021.