10 THE OYSTEE. 



undergone the ordeal of cooking by the skill of a 

 superior artist. 



I have oftentimes been told that it is a mere question 

 of fastidiousness, or fashion, that oysters should be served 

 for human food only at a certain fixed period of the 

 year — those months possessing the letter r being pro- 

 verbially the only months when the oyster is fit for 

 human food. Why not, such reasoners have said, eat 

 oysters all the year round ? Life is short. Why not 

 obtain the first of gastronomical enjoyments every month 

 of the year and every day of the month ? I can in no 

 manner go with these opinions, either from my practical 

 knowledge of the oyster, or from any just reasoning. 



I am aware that there are many good men and true, 

 and others calling themselves, somewhat erroneously, 

 sportsmen, beyond the white clifi's of Britain, who 

 would eat an oyster on the hottest day of June and July 

 as they would a partridge, a pheasant, or a salmon at 

 any season of the year. Sufficient the names oyster, 

 partridge, pheasant — all gastronomical delights — all to 

 be eaten, and by them eaten whensoever and where- 

 soever served, what matters it ? I am also aware 

 that in our good City of London, in the hottest and 

 earKest days of August,"^' oysters are gulped down by 



* The common Colchester and Faversham oysters are 

 brought to market on the 5th of August. They are called 

 Common oysters, and are picked up on the French coast, and 

 then transferred to those beds ; the Milton, or, as they are 

 commonly called, the melting Natives, the true Rutupians, do 

 not come in till the beginning of October, continue in season 

 till the ].2th oft May, and approach the meridian of their per- 

 fection about Christmas. The denizens from France are not 



