DISCOMFORT ZONE:Literary Correspondent EILEEN BATTERSBYturns food writer for a day, visiting Doonbeg Seafood Festival and entering an oyster-eating contest. Mmmm!
IT WAS NEVER going to be easy, but someone had to do it, someone with a proven capacity for servile obedience. So there was I, entrusted with a task culled from the pages of Homer, the ingesting of about 100 oysters and all for the greater glory of The Irish Times. "You can do this," intoned the commissioning editor with the zeal of a messianic coach thrusting a welterweight into the ring to face a sumo wrestler, "You're a competitive person, you can, you will, do this."
His voice trailed off. I gulped, loudly. Oysters? Yuck. Still, I’ve read a few bad books in my time, and hey, what are a couple of crummy oysters to an unfussy eater possessed of a cast-iron constitution? Perhaps eating contests are management’s way of feeding the more poorly paid members of staff?
Apparently there was a Japanese political activist who once ate several hundred oysters, or was that a thousand? He died shortly afterwards of natural causes – a euphemism for excessive vomiting. The world appears to be divided between those who love the idea of eating oysters as a ritualised, quasi-sophisticated existentialist experience, and the rest, an overwhelming majority who find the practice revolting. I belong in the second category. Having described eating oysters as a fate even worse than having to watch a golf tournament (forgive me Dad, former pro golfer, forgive me) I ended up on the oyster beat.
My most graphic oyster memory until now was of endeavouring to interview the taciturn Russian poet Joseph Brodsky when he was more drawn to the plate of oysters before him. There was no polite discourse; no eye contact; his throat undulated as the oysters slid down it. Admittedly, once he had dispatched them, his mood improved.
Do competitive oyster-eaters specialise in oysters? Yes. Are oyster-eaters obsessive? Glamorous? Tormented? Do they have an ordinary home life? Do they pay tax? Keep pets? How do they deal with such vast amounts of protein? Are they really depraved sex maniacs? Do they trawl the world in search of oyster festivals much as professional poker players follow the international circuit? Is eating an oyster pretty much like swallowing a pulverised eyeball floating in oily goo? Who would know?
The oyster-eating contest is part of the Doonbeg Seafood Festival. Doonbeg, Co Clare is home to a jazz festival and a traditional Irish music weekend, not forgetting the tenacious whorl snail still resident despite the contentious golf course dominating the sea views.
Such lofty thoughts preoccupied my lowly arts journalist self on traversing the beautiful west Clare landscape in anticipation of the first glimpse of the sea. Reassurance radiated from the giant bottle of ketchup strapped into the passenger seat of my ancient car. Cunningly, I reckoned that a hefty squirt would obliterate the flavour sufficiently to enable me to triumph without actually having to taste an oyster.
“Fear not,” I had bragged to the editor, “I can file from the Ennis A&E, while I’m having my stomach pumped – after I’ve won.”
My mind's eye evoked images of me, green-faced, flanked by a mighty trophy and the helpful nurse to whom I would dictate an impressively objective account of the contest. An Irish Timesbanner would by then have been hoisted into place atop the already historic pile of empty oyster shells; my empty oyster shells.
On swallowing my fifth chocolate bar, vital pre-competition lining for the stomach, I cruised creakily into unsuspecting Doonbeg, on the alert for fellow competitors. I was nervous; a good sign, the old pre-race nerves. Were we all going to stand glaring at each other? Flexing our gullets? Psyching out the opposition like Olympic sprinters at the starting line of the 100m final? Whose nerve would break? Would there be tears? False starts? Tantrums? A riot? A steward’s inquiry? Was there medical backup? Exactly how close was the nearest toilet?
Traditional music was being played by a lively band settled on an open truck serving as a stage. There was the table – the oysters were waiting. I’d often photographed oyster catchers, handsome waders with distinctive red beaks. But what do oyster-eaters look like? A tall, thin young man hovered near the table, examining the oysters. He was very tall – basketball-player tall.
An older man wearing a straw hat swaggered over; he looked something of a dandy, and an obvious oyster-eater. A couple of women approached the table, smiling, intent on presenting themselves as fun contestants; another woman appeared, delicately lifted an oyster and walked away – apparently to savour it in private. She looked normal; this alone made her actions mysterious. A cheerful-looking female arrived, declaring “I love oysters” before adding, “They’re very good for you, if you can stomach them at all.”
There was no edge, no tension. There were no animal- right campaigners present. It was relaxed; good natured. The ketchup no longer seemed such a great idea; it could result in disqualification. Imagine the disgrace, I shuddered. Abandoning the bottle behind a post, I returned to the table, as did the basketball player. He hadn’t a hope. Too tall; the oysters would have a very long way to go. He had the face of a young antelope, devoid of the necessary guile. Under starter’s orders, the first one to finish seven oysters would be the winner. Seven? Only seven? Not a thousand? How could seven possibly sustain the epic waiting to be written?
My second oyster was soon following the same path my first had taken, into my pocket, but then I noticed soft, watching eyes. They belonged to a small boy. He had an “I accuse” expression, stern and unforgiving. Do oysters have feelings? Is oyster-eating as barbaric as bullfighting or boiling lobsters?
The oyster, lying in one half of its open shell, looks inert, more like a fragment of yellowed muscle than an eyeball. It does not inspire sympathy; not even Disney could devise an appealing oyster.
