Desperation and hunger stalk the cold back streets of Paris on a Christmas night.
A huddle of les miserables search back and forth, accosting the few passersby, begging not for coins but for directions.Through no fault of their own, their flight to Paris was missed and precious time lost. The older daughter, the trip planner, is almost in tears, having arranged an arrival-night dinner at Brasserie Flo, known for its seafood and 1901 decor.But now the gypsies are late for their reservation, and just look at them! No bags have arrived, so it’s sweatshirts and other rumpled travel garb. The patriarch’s khaki pants testify to the wisdom of never ordering red wine on an airplane.Yet he insists not even the haughtiest Parisian maître d’ could turn them away on this night, and for once he will be right.Just as in most Christmas stories, all turns out well. The Americans are graciously seated, and the traditional French repast of the occasion is borne in triumph to their table.Belon oysters on the half shell.Oh, Joyeux Noël indeed! The French consume 70 percent of their oysters at Christmas and New Year.We Americans don’t do so badly ourselves — our appetite for the bivalves is growing.In the minds of many American families, oyster stews are traditional Christmas Eve fare. Some point to Irish Catholic immigrants who found a cheap substitute for their usual fish for Friday soup back home on the old sod — large oysters a penny apiece in the slums! But it’s found on German and Scandinavian holiday tables and in the Deep South, as well.The sense of something exotic and a bit expensive helped the tradition along. When better to splurge than the holidays?Even more important was the timing. In the olden days, East Coast oysters, which may live well over a month out of water as long as they are kept cool and their shells are tightly closed, couldn’t be hauled far from the coast in wagons full of wet straw until cold weather set in.Later, steamboats brought them far inland. The 1860 census of Kansas City shows an oyster and ice cream saloon — folks enjoyed oyster ice cream then.The railroads arrived just in time for an exploding East Coast shellfish industry. Before refrigerated cars came along, train crews had to replenish the ice at stops across the continent. (If this seems like a lot of trouble, the Romans, after conquering Brittany and its oyster beds, built a system of icehouses and carts to get them from the French coast to Rome.)Now, the little fellows simply take the red-eye into Kansas City International Airport. Bristol chef Travis Napier gets a daily update from Boston. “I ordered them at 8 o’clock this morning; they’ll be here tomorrow about the same time.” “Blessed if I don’t think that when a man’s very poor, he rushes out of his lodgings and eats oysters in regular desperation,” Sam Weller noted in Charles Dickens’ “The Pickwick Papers.” Well, it is true that as an oyster lover, I was fairly desperate to begin the research on this story about the resurgence of the shellfish, and what better time? Cold coastal winds now whistle up the waves of our bays, under which mollusks are plumping up for winter.Chesapeake Bay Barcats, Prince Edward Island Malpeques, Cockenoes from Connecticut, East Beach Blondes and Olde Salts. These are just some of the Atlantic Coast appellations. More than 60 are on the Chefs’ Resource list, and even that’s incomplete as more new growers give tempting names to the creatures. Yet just about every oyster from Canada to Mexico is a version of the same Crassostrea virginica. (One exception is in Maine, where Belons, Ostrea edulis, the so-called French flat oyster, were transplanted and are now growing wild.) What makes them unique is their taste, taken from the tribute delivered by the tides. Just as wine connoisseurs discuss terroir, the soil from which a grape was harvested, the talk here is merroir: the nutrients, temperature and salinity in the water the oysters are always filtering.“It takes great habitat to make great oysters, so when you taste a really superb one, you can take pleasure in knowing that you are tasting the untamed health and beauty of nature. An oyster doesn’t taste good because of a food scientist’s lecithin. It doesn’t taste good because of a winemaker’s oak chips. It doesn’t taste great because of the chef’s sauce. An oyster tastes good because at one spot in the natural world, something went right,” said Rowan Jacobsen in his connoisseur’s guide, “A Geography of Oysters.”A quickie cruise through the biology: Oysters flourish where two worlds collide — fresh water with the salt of the sea, in bays and estuaries. In one year, a female can discharge 100 million eggs, which change into larvae in about six hours. In the wild, perhaps 100 are not eaten.Survivors quickly grow through stages, including one called eyed larvae. These drifters explore their habitat for a few days, but their hardening and enlarging shells begin to weigh them down. Then it is imperative to find a hard surface, often the backs of their brethren that once created massive reefs of the living and the dead. Using a tiny foot, they inch around until time to secret a glue and attach themselves for their lifetime. Once lodged, they are called spat until they grow larger than an inch. They mature within a year and repeat the cycle.Any oyster can produce a pearl, but the eatin’ varieties rarely do. Some still may be found wild, but most of what we consume are farmed in sacks or trays suspended above the mud and predators, a practice begun before Christ. Some are harvested and consumed after two years. Others grow for four or five.The diet of phytoplankton blooming under the sun nearer the surface tends to leave a more vegetal finish. Some have distinctive hints of seaweed — hardly a surprise — but also cucumber, green tea, lettuce, water chestnut or salted honeydew.Some diners detect artichoke leaves — with butter, no less. Such a palette comes from trained, or let’s just say creative, taste buds. One connoisseur slurping through West Coasters reported tastes from salty smoked ham to miso soup to green apple. A high point for my family came at the Ocean Grill in New York’s Upper West Side, where some Kumamotos (Crassostrea sikamea) from the Northwest tasted just like watermelon.Grazing lower below on zooplankton, such as fish, crustacean and even shellfish (cannibalism!) larvae, imparts a more steely and crisp finish. Favorable descriptions mention copper, iron, clay or iodine tastes.Also to be considered: the “liquor” slurped from the shell, the deepness of the cup of said shell and the texture of the meat, which should seem “crisp” in a chewy sort of way.Timing and temperature make all the difference, said Scott Godke, manager at Seattle Fish Co., supplier to local restaurants. “A Malpeque will go through four or five flavor profiles in a year.” The tide, as they say, has turned.Not so long ago, millions of U.S. oysters were denuded of their calcium carbonate covers for frying and stewing and stuffing. At Taylor Shellfish Farms in Washington state, Bill Dewey said, just two decades ago 80 percent of theirs were shucked, and 20 percent went to the half-shell market. Now that ratio is reversed.“We’re the biggest shellfish company in the country (35 to 40 million oysters a year, not to mention clams and mussels), and we can’t touch the demand,” he said.The real money now is in “designer” oysters, glistening and still alive under the tiny silver fork, a unique meeting of the primitive with the elegant.If there be a mollusk mecca, pilgrim, you might check out the vast subterranean Grand Central Oyster Bar, with its vaulted tile ceiling under the station in New York. General manager Kevin Faerkin, asked how many half-shell varieties he was slinging, replied: “Thirty and then three more that are XL. We’re blowing through them.”Five thousand raws a day and multitudes more on the stoves.“It’s a renaissance. People seem to be more knowledgeable,” Faerkin said. “There’s a lot of oyster bars popping up here and there, two in my neighborhood.”Manhattan’s three Mermaid Inn restaurants sold just over 1 million oysters last year, up 25 percent from 2010. The company has an iPhone app called Oysterpedia with tasting notes for around 200 varieties.For one of the freshest New York experiences, you can taste the Naked Cowboy — not the one walking around Times Square.Chris Quartuccio, founder/CEO of Blue Island Shellfish Farms, said divers found a big bed of free-living shellfish on the north side of Long Island near Port Jefferson. As the website says: “He sought a name for these oysters that exemplifies New York and embodies the timeless qualities of passion and boldness.”And driving down Broadway one day, he saw the naked cowboy wandering about. Now the chapless one displays the brand on his strategically placed guitar.Once New York City was the Big Oyster. By 1880, the state produced 700 million annually. The harvest was down by 1907, but The New York Times noted the city still consumed 100 million that season.Delaware Bay was another boom area, with flourishing towns named Shellpile and Bivalve. By 1886, 80 train cars of oysters left daily from the latter. The high point of harvesting was in the 1880s, with 20 million oysters from the Chesapeake annually. Even in 1913, writer H.L. Mencken rhapsodized on Maryland oysters “as large as your open hand.”“A magnificent, matchless reptile! Hard to swallow? Dangerous? Perhaps to the novice, the dastard. But to the veteran of the raw bar, the man of trained and lusty esophagus, a thing of prolonged and kaleidoscopic flavors, a slow sipping saturnalia, a delirium of joy!”The first white men who sailed in Chesapeake Bay were stunned by the size of the beds and of the bivalves themselves. Some estimate 380 billion of these little water treatment systems were each filtering 25 to 50 gallons of water daily, leaving the bay so clean that colonists wrote of viewing its bottom.Pollution, silt and disease wiped out many of the Eastern oyster beds. They’d already been overharvested and the old reefs mined for their fertilizer and lime content. Today, the Chesapeake is populated by only 1 or 2 percent of the oysters that once thrived there. The first subjects of our Kansas City research were the eastern “Blue Points” offered by the downtown Bristol Seafood Grill.Often described as buttery smooth, it’s an introductory taste for many, Napier said. Oyster virgins often enjoy “sweet” varieties, which mostly are just less salty. A little lemon knocks down some of the brininess, but don’t overdo it.The Bristol also sells more robust Malpeques, Beausoleils from New Brunswick and Cockenoes. “Normally, we’ll get through 200 of the last three and 800 of the Blue Points in a week,” said Napier, who most days has nothing from the Pacific. His downtown clientele is more East Coast-oriented, he explained, so most of his seafood is flown from Foley Fish in Boston.Just one problem. His menu said his Blue Points were from Chesapeake Bay. This famous breed is actually from Long Island’s Great South Bay.“There’s not the true Blue Point there used to be,” Napier agreed.This is not unusual in Kansas City. The Savoy says it has Blue Points. McGonigle’s Market was selling them, but the box indicated the producer was Chesapeake again. Similarly, the Capital Grille’s bartender offered some, but when asked about the tag, the manager appeared and identified them as Crow’s Creek, a Cape Cod variety tasty at $3 a throw.Actually, the 13,000 acres of the now-defunct Blue Points Oyster Co. are held by the Nature Conservancy. It’s trying to re-establish clams — they better tolerate the bay’s now higher salinity — to restore water quality.“There will never be a Blue Point again,” Quartuccio said, “but people still wanted Blue Points.”This now-empty name was once the gold standard. The Chef’s Resources website: “In the early 1800s they were famous for their robust, wild flavor, and it became the favorite oyster of Queen Victoria.” “It was a craze,” Quartuccio said. “Big money in Blue Points, a great amount of piracy and counterfeit oysters.” New York stepped in in 1908 to say that there was only one, but the name is still borrowed widely, such as the Connecticut farm offering. Wrong Side of Long Island.Quartuccio’s operation near the Fire Island Inlet is in Great South Bay, only a few miles from the town of Blue Point. It has claimed to be “the only grower on earth of genuine Blue Point oysters” — but they’re registered as “Blue Island.”“We’re never going to be able to grow enough to satisfy the demand for the name. We’re walking away from it. The name doesn’t mean much, anymore,” at least for aficionados. His own stock, he thinks, is saltier than the originals. “You’re not getting the same product with the Blue Point; it’s been totally bastardized.”So where is poor old high-and-dry Kansas City’s best oyster experience? In my opinion, McCormick & Schmick’s. This Plaza location has six varieties on the daily menu, all Western except for the token, ahem, Connecticut “Blue Point.”They come out to $2.50 each, maybe a quarter more (think airfare) than raw bars in Northwest and East Coast cities. Two on Bristol’s lunch menu are the same price, two are $2.75.The Sunset Beach oysters were memorable. The Quilcene and Fanny Bays fine. Beware that the Gigamoto is no substitute for Kumamotos. Last visit, they also had Baja California Kumiais, a first, and a crisp and salty treat.I confess another reason to like McCormick & Schmick’s.During the Depression, after my grandfather lost his cattle and his farms, he kept the family afloat by trading in the family sedan for an old stock truck, with which he transported the neighborhood cattle, hogs and sheep to St. Louis yards. The idea was to get higher prices than the local auction barns would offer. He would haggle for the best price, and if it didn’t seem good enough, then haul the animals on over to the stockyard in East St. Louis and try there. He did well by the folks back home, taking their side fiercely and passionately in the setting of prices. At one point, a St. Louis cattle buyer moaned at my grandfather, “Dammit, John, just how many widows and orphans do you have up there in Monroe County?” Well, as close to the bone as their lives were, occasionally my grandfather would come home from Paris, Mo., on a Saturday night with a quart of those trained-in shucked oysters. Grandmother would make a stew — really it’s just a soup, the curled seafood simply drowned in country milk and butter, well salted and peppered. My father never stopped relishing that memory or its taste. He and Mom often had a large pot of it waiting for our arrival for the holidays. After he moved here, we’d have a weekly lunch and play gin at the table to settle who picked up the bill. McCormick & Schmick’s became a favorite location for its oyster soup. Even if it were off the menu, they’d make it for him.And they made one last order. As he lay dying, I took Dad their take-out carton for one last sip of the nectar. Some of us Midwesterners, deprived of having salt water lap at our feet, try to make up for lost time when the occasion arises. Take Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), who ate his weight in oysters several times over.“Verily the Occidental Hotel is Heaven on the half shell,” Clemens happily wrote home from San Francisco. “… if you refuse to move upon the supper works and destroy oysters gotten up in all kinds of seductive styles until 12 o’clock, the landlord will certainly be offended.”In Virginia City, Nev., he and six friends downed 14 dozen “Mexican oysters,” probably big Asian types farmed in the Gulf of California. When the saloon owner cut him no slack on the bill, Clemens took up his pen to paint the oysters as “poisonous.”He claimed to have been made ill, but another writer using the pen name “Amigo” noted: “Where there is a barrel of whiskey and only a half bushel of oysters, it is hardly fair to assume that the poison is all in the said oysters.”“Amigo” was Col. Albert Evans, another San Francisco journalist and an enemy, especially after Clemens’ mockery of Evans’ poem on the death of President Lincoln. Hinting of blackmail by Clemens, he wrote: “Mark Twain has killed the Mexican oyster. We only regret that the act was not inspired by a worthier motive.”That stung, apparently. After Clemens’ lucrative lecturing tour about the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) the next year, he replied to a question about his plans:“I have but one definite purpose in view,” he replied, “that is, to make enough money to insure me a fair trial, and then to go and kill Colonel Evans.”The Smithsonian magazine this summer wrote of the Olympia oyster, the West Coast native and supposedly a favorite of Clemens, although once he seems to refer to it as the “poor little insipid thing here.”The Forty-Niners depleted the supply of Olympias faster than they depleted the Sierras of nuggets. Transplanted Virginicas filled the menu niche until 1919, when they all mysteriously died off. Since then, the Crassostrea gigas, the Pacific oyster, has been the Western staple.And Clemens? He did not murder Evans but did go on to slay oysters by the score.When he moved east, it was into the very heart of oysterdom, the land of the Blue Points, Wellfleets, Rocky Nooks and the Chathams. In 1874, William Dean Howells wrote about Twain: “It was something fearful to see him eat escalloped oysters.” So the quest was before us: Track down Twain’s tiny Oly, Ostrea lurida.A recent trek to Seattle’s fabled Pike Place fish houses found none.“We don’t carry them,” said a manager at Emmett Watson’s Oyster Bar. “Too many complaints about the size. People think they’re getting ripped off.”Well, they are no larger than a half dollar. But securing a dozen at the Taylor Shellfish Farms’ Seattle store on Melrose Avenue for a friends/family taste competition against other types, no one felt cheated by the Oly. Shucking is not that difficult, really. Go to the beak, the nose, the hinge, whatever you wish to call the pointed end of the creature, work in the dull-edged oyster knife far enough (this is the hard part) to be able to make a “turning of the key” motion, at which point the oyster surrenders. Then slip the knife along the inside of the top shell to sever the adductor muscle. Voila!Taylor, headquartered at Shelton, Wash., harvests various Pacifics, including the beautiful tide-tumbled Shigokus. It also offers the only Western-grown Virginica, from Totten Inlet, graces the table with the small, but deep-cupped Kumamoto and maintains the glory of the Olys, the ones that brung ’em to the dance five generations ago.The moon failed to cooperate, and the tides were too high to actually view any of the Taylor beds that pepper the Puget Sound area. But Dewey showed visitors around the company’s Flupsy, that is, the floating upweller system, a raft nursery made of many large, suspended aluminum bins through which nutrient-rich water is pulled by paddlewheels.He gently slipped a flat-nosed shovel into the dark water of a bin and brought up a few thousand of the millions of spats nurtured here in Oakland Bay. These tiny Pacifics can grow huge.In this streamlined process, the spat does not cling to larger “cultch,” that is, other oyster shells or rocks, as they would in the wild. Taylor grinds up hills of empty shell outside its processing plant — down to microscopic 1/4 millimeter grains. The just-formed oyster finds this adequate and latches on to it, content to anchor upon nothing more substantial. “The challenge is to get them large enough to put in the farms,” Dewey said.When they’re ready, they’ll be spread by boat to grow in inner bay areas out of the range of the murderous Dungeness crab. Big enough to foil the beast, they will move again to finish their growth in fattening beds. There, at low tide, Taylor’s good shepherds will walk among them, pulling off other predators such as drills and starfish.Looking at thousands of oysters that someone else will get to eat wears on a man.So we went back to town and Xinh’s, where the chef hauled out oysters on the half shell, pan fried, stewed and baked in hoisin sauce. These were crowded on the table by the Manila clams in black bean sauce, mussels in curry sauce or marinated, and, oh yes, geoduck sautéed and sashimi (raw) washed down with beer.Many can’t handle an oyster unless cooked or cloaked somehow.“I prefer my oysters fried,” wrote humorist Roy Blount Jr. “That way I know my oysters died.”That’s fine with me. Momma didn’t raise no snobs. Although preferring oysters “in naturalibus” — so alive that they don’t suspect their doom until shaking hands with my uvula — they grace the gumbo, the stew, the cheesy grits. I’ve devoured the po’boy sandwich at Acme Oyster House in New Orleans and the original Oysters Rockefeller at Antoine’s three blocks away.Xinh Dwelley, a fireplug of a chef with a joy-filled smile, belongs in the same oyster hall of fame.She was an American success story even before she got to the states, a favorite self-taught cook in the enlisted mess at a U.S. base during the Vietnam War. She married a G.I., sold spring rolls at the farmers market in Olympia, Wash., and began working for Taylor as a shucker — five-time West Coast champion. But her cooking skills won out, and Taylor staked her in Xinh’s Clam and Oyster House. So, if you’re ever in Shelton … The sex life of an oyster is rather jumbled — juveniles start out as males but switch genders — and really none of our business.But do they contribute to ours? Are they aphrodisiac or placebo?Many believed that if anything were behind this ramped-up randiness theory, it was in zinc found in the creature. A few years ago, though, some researchers were pointing to the amino acids, which might set off production of testosterone in males and progesterone in females.One would probably need to eat a lot of them. Casanova did — 50 at breakfast, or was it his evening punch? Nero served them at orgies (but then, they thought wolf penis and crocodile semen were aphrodisiacs, too.)Setting aside what they may or may not do for the love life, oysters are swimming with protein, vitamins A and B12, iron and calcium. They also are low in cholesterol and calories.By the 17th century, the big appetites at the French palace of Versailles — Louis XIV was said to down 100 at a sitting before a meal — began worrying about the diminishing stocks and issued a royal ban against consumption in months without an “R” in the name. These happen to be the warmer months, which arouse the creatures to spawn. While that’s going on, it’s perfectly safe to eat them, but you wouldn’t want to: Their flavor falls off, they lose weight, and their texture turns watery.These days you can sit down at a raw bar anytime. Some of the fare comes from cooler parts of the world, and some are triploid oysters, that is, chromosomally confused and unable to spawn.“You can buy oysters year round, but you need to know where you’re pulling them from,” said Godke at Seattle Fish’s warehouse in the North Bottoms.Not that there aren’t warm-water health issues, like red tide neurotoxin, which may leave you with nausea, dizziness, dilated pupils and tingling sensations in your fingers and toes. Generally, both you and the oyster will get over it.There also is Vibrio vulnificus, which will send the usually healthy man — for some reason the male is much more likely to catch it and not just because women don’t eat as many oysters — to make offerings to the white porcelain god.Cooking kills off Vibrio, a naturally appearing bacteria, and many Gulf of Mexico oysters are being pasteurized. But folks with HIV or AIDS, liver disease, advanced diabetes and some types of cancers should never eat an uncooked shellfish, period. Most such deaths — 14 last year, federal statistics say — came from Gulf oysters. Some context: Colorado cantaloupes killed twice as many in 2011.It’s not just the South. Vibrio parahaemolyticus, somewhat milder than its Southern cousin, showed up this summer in Drake’s Bay in California and Oyster Harbor on Long Island. A red tide shut down beds off British Columbia in early October. Gulf Coast fisheries have had it worst, hammered by Katrina, the BP oil spill, floods down the Mississippi and, more recently, the Southern drought.While excessive fresh water from storms can be fatal, shriveled up rivers let too-high salinity creep up and choke the little fellows in their beds. Take Florida’s Panhandle, suffering from the diversion of river water from Georgia. The Tampa Bay Times this month ran this headline: “ ‘We’re looking at the end of the oyster industry’ in Apalachicola area.”Some experts dismiss Southern oysters as “listless” in flavor, but Texan Robb Walsh, author of “Sex, Death & Oysters,” detects elitism and sings their praises.Noting the sexiness of the appellations elsewhere, some Texas harvesters began naming their catch for parts of Galveston Bay, such as Pepper Grove, Possum Pass and Hanna’s Reef. I’m thinking, though, the marketers may want to rethink Todd’s Dump. Anyway, Walsh and others say that many oysters sold as Chesapeake’s finest are actually the much cheaper, trucked-in Gulf shellfish that have not been even so much as baptized in Eastern waters.About those pasteurized oysters — I had a half dozen at a local restaurant that I will not name, and I cannot recommend them. Should any oyster “virgin” befall these, it would be hard not to choose celibacy for life. Two years ago, it was estimated that 55 percent of our oysters came from the Gulf (most from Louisiana) and 35 percent from the Northwest (most from Washington), with the pittance from the East Coast.Divining a newer ratio from conflicting statistics of pounds, sacks, bushels and tons of shucked and unshucked is like trying to nail an oyster to the wall.But it’s clear the East Coast is seeing a comeback while the Gulf is still struggling. With improving resistance to two disastrous diseases, MSX and Dermo, Maryland reported a 92 percent survival rate of baby oysters this year. Fledgling efforts to restock the clearing waters of New York Harbor also are being made.Virginia producers last year sold more than 23 million farmed oysters — some named Olde Salts, Stingrays, Snow Hills, Witch Ducks and Rappahannock River — up from fewer than 1 million in 2005.Still, the life of the oyster seems perilous. In France, a form of herpes has riddled the Normandy and Brittany beds. The 2011 tsunami wiped out the Japanese coasts that produce much of the world’s seed. If hurricanes are growing in severity, this means heavy wave action, churning up the floors of bays and burying the shellfish. Quartuccio expects some mortality in his beds from Sandy’s recent passage. “But fortunately our oysters weren’t exposed to the tidal surge. They’re grown in bags about a foot off the bottom, so we don’t get a lot of wave action.” Of other operators with gear closer to the surface, he said, “Their stuff got blown miles away all over the bay.”But it is our own Pacific oysters illustrating the much deeper threat from the modern world.In 2008, Taylor suffered a 50 percent mortality rate of its nurtured larvae. The next year it was 75 percent. Growers soon deduced it was a result of a backed-up carbon dioxide sink.To explain: Phytoplankton absorbs CO2 at the surface, then dies, taking the trapped green-house gases deep below, where the cold holds them better than the warmer surface water. But upwellings, more common on the west shores of land masses, bring the corrosive carbonic acid to shallow waters, dooming sensitive larvae and dissolving the just-forming shells of tiny oysters and also the pteropods so crucial in the ocean food chain.Oystermen are looking for ways to protect their farms, some spreading their bets with hatcheries in Hawaii. Taylor also has tried buffering the water around its larvae with sodium carbonate.The problem has receded for now. But scientists think the oceans already are 30 percent more acidic than before the Industrial Revolution. It has gotten the attention of even East Coast producers. “It’s only going to get worse,” Dewey said..The Old Man and the SeaSetting aside the Tequila Mockingbird, I believe this is the best fusion of literature and alcohol in naming a beverage.1.5 ounces Grey Goose vodka3 ounces tomato water1 dash WorcestershireCoat the rim of an Old-Fashioned glass with a combination of sea salt, ground nori and fresh black pepper.Mix vodka, tomato water, Worcestershire and oyster liquor over ice. Strain into the glass.A freshly shucked oyster, of course, the “old man” in this drama, is at the bottom of the glass.Salude, old man!(Some versions of this drink are called oyster shooters. But where is the soul in that?)Pan RoastMakes 2 servings16 freshly shucked oysters with 1/2 cup of their liquor2 tablespoons bottled ketchup-style chili sauce2 tablespoons dry white wine2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce¼ teaspoon celery salt½ stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter (divided)½ cup heavy cream2 slices crusty bread, toastedPaprika to tasteIn a metal bowl or double boiler set over a saucepan of simmering water, stir together oysters with their liquor, chili sauce, wine, Worcestershire sauce, celery salt and 2 tablespoons butter and simmer, stirring occasionally, just until edges of oysters begin to curl, about 5 minutes. Add cream and bring barely to a simmer. DO NOT LET BOIL.Put toast in 2 bowls and top with remaining butter. Ladle oyster mixture over toast and sprinkle with paprika.
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