This weekly column, “Adventures in Good Eating,” by Back Door Café chef/owner Fran Ginn usually appears each Thursday in the Marion County Informer. It is appearing today because of technical issues that occurred last week.

……I relish the opportunity of finding something new and different to eat wherever I go. I love to explore why people eat what they do and how food has shaped their lives. Adventures in Good Eating is my way of sharing the pleasure of culinary discovery and also the anticipation of tables and tastes yet to be found.

This past Sunday Mike and I drove to New Orleans to attend the first Oyster Festival in New Orleans. There are dozens of festivals in Louisiana, several dedicated to the oyster, but not one specifically in New Orleans. Last winter I received an email from Sal Sunseri, owner with his brother and sister of P & J Oysters, the oldest oyster production facility in the country. Sal wrote with great excitement about a festival celebrating the quality and versatility of Gulf oysters, which comprise 44% of the oysters consumed in the United States. The two day event would feature oyster eating contests (56 dozen consumed in a sitting is the record – held by a woman!), oyster shucking contests and lots of restaurants selling their best oyster dishes. Talk about an oyster lovers dream come true! Imagine being about to have Galatoire’s Oyster Brochettes, Broussard’s Oyster Rockefeller Bisque, Luke’s Fried Oysters with Smoked Tomato Salsa and an Oyster Poboy from Acme Oyster House, all in one place, to be eaten in succession just as fast as you could devour them. However, all this delicious joy was over-shadowed by the looming threat of contamination of the oyster beds by the BP oil spill. The festival, which had been designed to be a celebration of historic industry felt more like a family in an ICU waiting room dreading the demise of a loved one. The talk from the stage was in turn angry, bitter, then courageous. When a speaker talked of restaurants in other parts of the country posting signs that “We DO NOT serve Gulf seafood” and of a government official who said “if this thing gets to Florida and the Atlantic we’ll have a national emergency” drew loud vocal response from the audience. The feeling of solidarity between the crowd and the oyster industry was amazing.

Driving home from New Orleans Sunday evening, I thought about eating oysters with my family. Mike and I reminisced about favorite dishes and experiences. (Can you tell that my family takes eating very seriously?) I’d like to share a few of them with you.

My very first memory of oysters involved my grandfather, R. L. Barnes – who was largely responsible for my interest in all things good to eat. Papaw had an office in New Orleans and would bring home all kinds of tasty things on his once a week trip to that office. One week he brought home a sack of oysters. He sat on his back steps with a knife and began shucking them.
Of course, I wanted to know what he was doing with the “sea shells”. He opened one and ate it right out of the shell. (Note: he often said that if he went into the chicken yard and put some chicken **** on a cracker, one of us would want a bite.) Of course, I said, “Papaw, can I have one?” His response was “Little Sister, this is how you do it. Tip the shell back in your mouth and let the oyster slide down”. At age 3 or 4, I had no idea the oysters were raw and still alive, I just knew that my Papaw was eating and enjoying them and I wanted one, too. The taste and texture were unlike anything I’d ever experienced…….cold, salty, soft, chewy….I was hooked. Later that evening my Daddy made cocktail sauce and fixed me saltine crackers topped with oysters and the sauce…….those were even better.

From the beginnings of raw, I progressed to fried oysters. In my childhood, my grandmother Barnes had a stove with a deep well for frying built in (you’d never see that in these days of the Fry Police”. She would use locally ground cornmeal, garlic powder and cayenne and peanut oil and fry oysters until we couldn’t hold any more. These delectable morsels were accompanied by home-made potato chips she cut on a mandolin. I always wanted to run the potato over the cutting blade, but she was afraid I would cut my hand. My job was to swish the freshly cut potato slices in ice water until all the starch was washed off. We would dry them carefully on clean dish towels – that was so the oil wouldn’t sputter when we dropped the potatoes into the pot. She never let me drop in the potatoes either for fear I’d be burned. She carefully dipped out the potatoes which were perfectly golden brown – you knew they were ready if they floated to the top. She spread them out on a torn brown paper grocery bag lined with paper towels. We salted them lightly. I did have the assigned job of official taster – not a bad thing to be. For a while the Cape Cod Potato Chip Company made a chip called “Dark Russet Chips”. They tasted as close to my grandmother’s as store-bought chips ever did. Sadly, I don’t find them in stores anymore. We ate those fried oysters and chips with Heinz ketchup and tartar sauce made from my grandmother’s homemade mayonnaise. The mayonnaise is another story….and, by the way, I have the pot inset from that stove in my kitchen.

As time progressed and my taste-buds expanded, I found Oysters Bienville, which to this day is my favorite oyster dish. Created in New Orleans, the dish was named for Sieur de Bienville, Jean Baptiste le Moyne, the founder of New Orleans. Both Arnaud’s and Antoine’s, historic restaurants in the French Quarter, claim to have invented the dish. The recipe calls for a béchamel sauce (the French name for a thick white sauce) enriched with shrimp, mushrooms, green onions, white wine and Parmesan cheese. This scrumptious mixture is piled on oysters on the half-shell, then put into the oven to bake to a golden brown. When done correctly, the oysters beneath their blanket of creamy sauce are just plump and an amazing counterpart to the richness of the sauce.

Two other family anecdotes about oysters both involve my father. When Mike and I were dating in late high school and college, he came to pick me up for a date. I wasn’t quite ready and Mike had to sit and make conversation with Daddy. Daddy’s supper that night was raw oysters. He offered one to Mike. Mike, in his perennially gracious manner, declined. Daddy, in his perennially determined way, insisted. Mike finally accepted a cracker topped with cocktail sauce, lemon juice and a briny oyster. He was hooked. Score one for Daddy.

In April of 1981 I was living in New Orleans. I had come home for the Easter week-end, which also coincided with Daddy’s birthday. I brought home some great oysters – freshly shucked. For his birthday supper, Daddy requested that I make Oysters Brochette, a favorite preparation from Galatoire’s. This is a fairly tedious recipe which involves blanching bacon first, then wrapping the bacon around each oyster. The resulting brochette – or skewer – of bacon wrapped oysters is lightly dredged in seasoned flour and browned in a mixture of butter and oil. When the brochette is perfectly browned, the bacon cooked and the oyster just barely plumped, a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice is added to the pan, along with some freshly chopped parsley.
At this time in my culinary growth, I was very intrigued with fresh parsley and garnishing plates. I liberally sprinkled the parsley over Daddy’s brochette. I’ll never forget his comment, “Sister, this is absolutely delicious, but maybe you could cut back on the grass clippings.” At the time, I had no idea it would be the last thing I cooked for him. He died quite suddenly just two weeks later.

In lieu of a recipe this week, I’d like to suggest some web-sites for your reading. The first is for P & J Oysters, www.oysterlover.com. The next is for the Louisiana Oyster Board, www.louisianaoysters.org. Finally, www.whatscookingamerica.net/OysterRecipes.htm.

We can all keep the oyster and seafood industry in the Gulf in our prayers. These good, hard-working people are losing their industry and way of life. Here’s hoping that the oil can be stopped, the damage cleaned up and the oysters can return to the Gulf, healthy and delicious for generations to come.