‘Shuck Me.’ By Lilli Boisselet
When I started researching the idea of aphrodisiacs in the early days of this project (March 2020 Lockdown), oysters became a reoccurring theme. So I asked the question for RUSSH Magazine, are oysters the ultimate aphrodisiacs or is it all in our minds?
I photographed ultimate cool girl Brooke Madsen with Bondi Oysters from Pambula, NSW, on a Clay by LB Rosaleen black oyster plate, in my Sydney studio to accompany the article.
The RUSSH Taste Issue #97 is available now.
“Oysters inhabited this earth long before us, they’ve been privy to all our histories unfold. Evolutions, Revolutions, Ages and Empires have risen and fallen around their unassuming shells. When Anthony Bourdain told us, ‘The history of the world is on your plate,’ no food captures this like the humble oyster.
Shop Rosleen Black Clay Oyster Plate.
Modern metaphors have been solidified around them - “Why, then, the world’s mine oyster,” first declared Shakespeare in 1602. Most famous are the stories from the 1700’s, when Italian lover Giacomo Casanova consumed oysters for breakfast everyday, “off the breasts of a beautiful woman, usually in a warm tub.” Notoriously decadent French monarch Louis XIV insisted on daily deliveries of oysters to Versailles from the coast of Cancale and Voltaire swore by consuming oysters to inspire his creative intellect. The first ever cookbooks published contained recipes of oyster dishes; even their ground shells have been utilised in traditional medicines from Peru to India for centuries.
Their reach stretches coastlines, anecdotes and plates across time and geography. And yet, through it all, in direct contrast to growing tired of a long-term companion, they’ve emerged as our ultimate lovers; synonymous with aphrodisiacs and romance and sex. Why do they occupy such a place in our hearts, minds, plates and bedrooms?
Historically, oyster shells have been found by archaeologists in places associated with women’s birthing rituals; and in mid-century European paintings, oysters were used as a representation of a woman’s sexuality. A closed oyster painted next to a woman symbolised her virginity, while an open oyster alluded to her supposed promiscuity. American poet Anne Sexton suggests something evolves within us when we eat our first oyster, suggesting women become women.
there was a death, the death of childhood
there at the Union Oyster House
for I was fifteen
and eating oysters
and the child was defeated. The woman won.
Their distinct likeness in appearance to the female anatomy has held mankind captive. An analogy accentuated by the eroticism of the practice of devouring - a sexually charged head tilted back, a wide-open mouth , perhaps some juices running from the sides of plump lips and dripping from one’s chin. The multi-sensory experience of ingesting the oyster is as much to our sexual delight as the rich injection of vitamins and minerals. Science has confirmed what had long been suspected; that raw oysters are high in minerals crucial in regenerating sexual hormones. Our libidos, particularly women’s, have long been a source of oracle and enigma, but modern science has helped to crack much of the code. The high levels of zinc and potassium found in oysters increase levels of testosterone production, which, commonly associated with male sexuality, are also critical for a healthy sexual appetite in women.
However, when you ask what, exactly, an oyster tastes like, no-one can give you a satisfying answer. French poet Léon-Paul Fargue said eating one was “like kissing the sea on the lips.” To Australian oyster farmer Jason Finlay, “like creamy, citrusy rust and smoke.”
Luca Turin, perfume maverick from The Emperor of Scent, details a molecule called Calone, developed by French perfumers in the 1960s. They described is as “oyster-like” - Turin describes it as, “halfway between the apple and the knife that cuts it, a fruity turned up to a white heat.”
Describing the taste of an oyster is like describing sexual chemistry. In the way we struggle to pinpoint what exactly it is we love about someone, perhaps the impact of oysters on our hearts is that it just feels right. It just feels erotic and sensual, intuitive and primitive. An instinctual connection to humankind since we first scuttled out of the sea.
Oysters are those passionate, nostalgic romances we all remember; the ones who were completely wrong for us on paper, but were intensely satisfying in the moment.
Some oyster lovers talk about the ritual of devouring oysters, of admiring the colouring on the shell, burnished by years of soaking in the sun. Of the intimacy of shucking; of the dangerous-yet-thrilling excavation. Of slipping the knife deep into the shell, cutting the muscle attaching the oyster to its lifeline. Of savouring the juices, chewing the soft meat. Placing the shell back on the plate in formation. You have to be paying attention. An accompaniment to conversations that last long into the early hours of the morning, that allowed minds to say the things they never would with idle hands. An art, as much as a consumption.
