[Sca-cooks] Oysters in the shell vs. shucked oysters

[Saint Phlip]

On 11/20/06, Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com> wrote:

> Thanks. I think. Much of that looks very tempting, although I guess
> it is going to have to wait until I get a job. :-)
> The Gulf Shrimp seem a bit high, but then for me that would mean
> paying to have them shipped from a few hours from me to the northeast
> and then back down to here. :-;
>
> I do have a question about the oysters, though. The site gives their
> prices as:
>
> Fresh Oysters in the Shell
>      By the Dozen           $19.99
>      By the 100 count       $79.99
>
> Shucked Oysters
>      By the Pint
> 30-40 per pint             $18.99
>      By the Gallon
> 1 gallon = 8 pints        $119.99
>
> The way I interpret this is that the shucked oysters are cheaper than
> the fresh oysters. ie: 12 fresh ones cost slightly more than 30-40
> shucked ones.  How can this be, since there is additional work in
> shucking the oysters? Is there a much higher demand for oysters in
> the shell, which would boost their price, compared to the shucked
> oysters? But in that case, why shuck them at all? Or do you lose some
> meat or something in the shucking process? Or since this company sets
> the shipping price by the total order cost rather than by the
> shipment weight, is charging more for the unshucked oysters simply a
> way to make back some of the higher shipping cost because of the
> extra weight of the shells?
>
> Is there some reason I would want the oysters in the shell vs. the
> shucked oysters?

Oysters in the shell are still alive- or they'd better be- and are
therefor fresher than the shucked ones. Any oyster starts to
deteriorate in quality as soon as it dies- that's true of most
seafood- so the fresher they are, the better they taste. That's likely
not very important to those who don't know the difference, but it IS
important to those of us who do. And, it's more difficult to ship them
and keep them alive.

As for other reasons to want them in the shell, if you shuck them
yourself, you also get some of the oyster liquor which tends to vanish
when they're pre-shucked. And taste, well... we had fresh oysters
cooked on Ries' tailgate in the parking lot at the big ABANA
conference in Seattle. Nothing quite like them ;-) Almost as good as
raw- he cooked them over his homemade grill. As many oysters as I
could talk the rest of the smiths out of, cold beer, and good metal
chat- there's bits of Heaven on earth ;-)

>
> Thanks,
>    Stefan


-- 
Saint Phlip

Heat it up
Hit it hard
Repent as necessary.

Has anyone seen my temper?
I seem to have misplaced it at Stalag XXXV....