Bluff Oysters are the best food on the planet, writes Mark Story
Bluff Oysters are the best food on the planet, writes Mark Story
Yesterday's light rain didn't dampen the spirits.
How could it? This is indisputably the best season of the year for wild fare.
Charitably speaking I'm a foodie - uncharitably I'm a glutton. Either way, autumn works incredibly well for this author.
And plenty of it is free.
A lazy stroll to reserves on Bluff Hill provides pockets full of produce. The walnuts are falling alongside the feijoas, while the dogged blackberries put up a brave and sometimes bloody fight before being plucked from the bush.
Speaking of Bluff, (and these aren't free) no mention of autumn fare would be complete without acknowledging the magic oyster slow-grown in icy Foveaux Strait.
Here's a delicacy deserving of every superlative shucked its way; a food born into culinary completeness. Not even the popular twist of lemon juice improves it.
I can think of no other food - plucked, shucked, shot, reared or ripened - that is perfectly seasoned in its natural state and marinated in its own liquor - salty, seaweed, meaty, mineral.
"The oyster's my world", someone very wise once claimed.
Legend has it 15th century Frenchman Louis XI ordered his advisers to feast on oysters each day so as to up their intellects. Our own late poet Hone Tuwhare likewise was seen to skull an entire jug of oysters to add to his lyrical powers prior to a poetry reading in a Dunedin pub.
Still, autumn remains a paradox. As the season of passing, browning, drying, dying and falling, it's the season that reminds us of our mortality most - but it's also a season of abundance.
