Hot Sauce & Oysters

Homegrown English Peas

Since moving to the suburbs a few years ago, I've gradually become an avid, borderline obsessive, gardener.  Testing soil PH, establishing fruiting perennials, composting aggressively, researching off season cover crops, and pretty much everything in between.  There's something incredibly rewarding about growing your own produce, plus my kids really enjoy it.  Put a plate of cooked peas in front of them and no way in hell they'll touch it.  "Yucky!"  But if they're pulling pods straight from the vine and shucking their own, they'll eat a full serving of English peas all at once.  Whatever it takes to get those veggies in, right?  Also, since I started gardening, I've been trying to connect my newly found horticulture enthusiasm with that of my legacy oyster and seafood obsession.  I struck a few short chords, mostly with my oyster paved garden path and an exploration of pairing oysters with eggs from chickens my neighbor raises.  Then, late this Spring, I realized the massive, classic pairing of garden produce and oysters that I'd been missing - homegrown hot peppers, in the form hot sauce, and oysters.

Chile Peppers

Peppers of The Americas
by M. Presilla

As always, this sent me down the research rabbit hole of hot sauce history, styles, and methods.  However, no research on hot sauce would be complete with out some detailed background on it's primary ingredient - capsicums, more commonly known as chile peppers or just peppers.  This is a nerd blog after all, and I actually wrote my college thesis on the dissemination of flora by the Portuguese empire, largely focusing on peppers.  That C+ is long lost to time, but it was nostalgically comforting to read the abridged versions of what I once studied collegiately some twenty years ago. 

Peppers are native to the Americas, with archaeobotanists tracing their origins to the Eastern Andean lowlands and Western Amazon basin.  Their heat or spice primarily comes from capsaicin, a chemical compound produced to deter consumption by mammals.  Contrary to popular belief, capsaicin is produced by a pepper's placenta (the white, pithy core) and not the seeds.  The seeds pick up a decent amount of the compounds given they're also produced by the placenta, but they're not the source.  Capsaicin, and a few related capsaicinoids, bind to receptors on mammals' tongues and produce a burning sensation, causing most mammals to avoid them.  It's a naturally occurring defense because when eaten, chile pepper seeds are destroyed by mammals' mastication and strong digestive tracts.  Birds, on the other hand, do not have capsaicin receptors, and eat peppers with much aplomb.  Birds also do not have teeth and their digestive tracts actually aid the germination of a pepper's seeds.  A true symbiotic relationship with the birds getting a nutritious treat while their aviatory nature ensures the plants' wide and successful propagation. 

Wild Peruvian Peppers - via Pepper Geek

Humans have been ironically drawn to the spiciness of peppers as far back as we know and are solely responsible for the plant's global reach.  Capsaicin, despite its initial scorching sensations, triggers several revitalizing reactions in the human body including endorphin releases, increased blood flow, and perspiration for body temperature cooling.  Contemporary research has even shown the positive effects it can have in fighting autoimmune diseases, not to mention our penchant for benign masochism.  Evidence of the consumption of wild varieties of peppers goes back millennia with early domestication roughly 6,000 years ago.  Civilizations throughout the Amazon, Andes, Caribbean, and Mesoamerica all have deep histories with peppers not just in their cuisines, but medicine, warfare, and even religious practices.  Early conquest-era records detail the Aztec using peppers to treat toothaches, the Arawak as a form of tear gas, and the Inca revering the pepper as one of the four creators of humanity.  Culinarily, peppers were a requirement in practically all meals for native populations, seasoning every dish they ate.  Most notably, there are records of each culture mashing, mixing, or grinding peppers into one form or another of spicy condiment - the original hot sauces. 

The first step in the pepper's global expansion was Columbus' 1492 arrival in the Caribbean.  He and his crew were introduced to peppers by the Taino people inhabiting modern-day Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.  Columbus' voyage was intended to find an alternate root to Asia, specifically China, India, and The Spice Islands.  Given the name of the latter, the ultimate goal was to gain better access to precious and expensive spices like nutmeg, cloves, and of course, black pepper (pimienta in Spanish).  So, when he encountered capsicums' spice and heat, he called them by a similar name, pimiento, and not the native name, ají.  Whether it was the taste similarity that caused the cross naming, or Columbus' attempts to hide his shame and embarrassment when returning to Spain without any actual black pepper, we'll never know.  Either way, capsicums are now known globally, in almost all languages, to have some nominal crossover with black pepper.  

Early Worldwide Dispersal of Chile Peppers - via Cornell Botanic Gardens

While Columbus and the Spanish did return to Europe with chile peppers and contributed to their dissemination within Western Europe, it was Portuguese merchants who truly spread them around the world.  They encountered peppers in both Iberia and Brazil, and sailed the world spreading them like wildfire.  They introduced them to Africa through Angola and Mozambique; India through Goa, Sri Lanka, and Calcutta; Oceania through Makassar and Malacca; and Asia through Macau and Tanegashima.  Practically everywhere the pepper landed, it immediately took hold.  As mentioned, spices and seasonings were rare and expensive, only accessible to the upper classes in most of the world.  Peppers, alternatively, are easy to grow, adaptable to most climates, and incredibly resilient.  They democratized flavor.  The Columbian exchange led to innumerable atrocities and tragedies, but the global dispersal of peppers was a major, outlying boon.  Cuisines around the world joyously welcomed them with several new hot sauce creations.  Could you imagine South African food without piri-piri.  Korean without gochujang, North African without harissa, or Southeast Asian without sriracha?  Practically every culture has made the pepper their own, both literally with their respective landraces and figuratively in their food identities.

Chile Peppers & Oysters

Top - Chili Pepper Institute Tasting Wheel
Bottom - Oyster Master Guild Tasting Wheel

The more I researched peppers, the more I realized they had in common with oysters.  There are thousands of oyster varieties.  They each have their own tastes, textures, and nuances.  They can be briny, sweet, savory, vegetal, earthy, snappy, buttery, and more.  Peppers are much the same.  There are thousands of pepper cultivars.  They can be spicy, mild, sweet, fruity, floral, crunchy, supple, and more.  The diversity is so great in both that organizations have created entire tasting wheels to guide experiences when eating them.  However, despite this immense diversity, all oysters and all peppers mostly come from just five specific cultivated species.  The Wellfleet oysters you enjoy are the exact same species as Chincoteagues, just grown in different waters, different styles, and from different broodstock.  Sweet bell peppers are also the same species as spicy serranos, just selectively bred for different traits and characteristics.  There is so much in common here that each domesticated pepper species has its analogous oysters species and vice versa, at least in terms of how and what we grow or consume in North America:
  

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Photo credits to Oyster Master Guild, Pepper Geek, and Chilli Books

Hot Sauce & Oysters

Oysters, peppers, and hot sauces all enjoy strong subcultures with fanatical followings, including beloved festivals, heated competitions, and even Guinness world records.  They're all deeply rooted in various cultural identities, as well as experiencing simultaneous resurgences in mainstream popularity.  But hot sauces specifically have an even richer history and association with oysters in North America.  Tabasco and oysters were advertised together from the very start of the brand in 1868, with Tabasco salesmen targeting oyster saloons.  But there are written and oral records of the use of hot sauce on oysters well before then, especially within the African diaspora.  As noted, peppers were the great democratizers of flavor and widely used by poor, immigrant, and slave communities.  At the same time, oysters were widely available and cheap throughout colonial and reconstruction America.  Black culture has been paramount in both building America's oyster industry and sharing hot sauce across the country over the last four hundred years.  Certainly the two met with high frequency, leading to the classic pairing we know today.

1875 bottle of Tabasco, noting "one or two drops
are enough for a plate of soup, meat, oysters, etc." 

 Many cherished oyster recipes of America's past call for hot sauce, including oyster stew, fried oysters, and oyster pan roasts, but they've also been paired for more than just flavor.  Old wives' tales tell us that hot sauce can kill any dangerous bacteria an oyster may be carrying.  This was particularly important in the pre-food safety regulation and refrigeration eras.  There's even contemporary research suggesting it may be true.  Capsaicin does have some antibacterial properties, but I would never advise consuming questionable shellfish, even if drowned in hot sauce.  The connection is entertaining, though.  But of all the historical hot sauce & oyster connections, my favorite is the satirical "Swallowing an Oyster Alive" by John S. Robb.  Published in 1844 in the St. Louis Reveille, it's a comedic tale of a poor out-of-towner being pranked.  After a bit of banter, he was coaxed into trying oysters for the very first time.  The locals then tricked him into believing the oysters were still alive and could kill him by eating through his stomach.  The only remedy - drinking a bottle of spicy pepper-sauce.  Give it a read or listen if you've got a few minutes.  It was the equivalent of a viral video in its day, and demonstrative of how hot sauce & oysters were already a staple in American culture nearly two hundred years ago. 

Hot Sauce & Oyster Trials

Beausoleil Oysters 

Now, finally time for some hot sauce & oyster trials.  Being up front, this is only a "dipping-my-toe-in-the-water" exploration.  It's exclusively hot sauce focused as I just used a single oyster variety for uniformity.  Even then, I only tested a handful of hot sauces available on the market.  There are thousands, especially with the craft hot sauce boom.  I had to draw the line somewhere, but believe me, my mind went pretty much everywhere.  Could chili crisp provide a nice textural contrast?  Would the fruitiness of Caribbean hot sauces go well with vegetal notes of Pacific oysters?  What about the complexity of sambal with the minerality of European flat oysters?  Eastern Carolina BBQ sauce and Texan oysters?  Nam phrik or nước chấm and Kumamotos?  The possibilities are literally endless. 

For a more robust hot sauce & oyster exploration, I suggest checking out Southern Maryland based content creator Rob Schou.  He's been going hard in the paint on all things seafood for the last 2+ years with an emphasis on various crabs, varieties of oysters, and fishing on the Chesapeake.  Over the last year, he's had a particular focus on oyster condiments, which naturally led to innumerable hot sauce & oyster combinations.  Mexican hot sauce reviews, homemade sriracha, a Hot Ones oyster test.  Several fans and brands have started sending him sauces to try, and he even did a March Madness Bracketology style hot sauce & oyster pairing competition.  Dude's been on a pretty envy-inducing journey over the last year. Scroll his channels for much more comprehensive hot sauce & oyster trials, as well as great seafood content in general.

Hot Sauce Lineup

Admittedly, I've proselytized on this blog countless times about being an oyster purist.  "No lemon, no lime, no horseradish, no cocktail sauce, and no hot sauce!  Taste your oysters in their true form to experience their nuance and flavor."  I still stand by this when eating a mixed dozen oysters from different regions.  It's the only way to appreciate their merroir.  However, my taste buds work, and oysters with hot sauce taste great.  That's undeniable.  So, over the course of a few weeks, I did my research and obtained fifteen hot sauces which I grouped into some loosely defined categories.  I reviewed them on a scale of 1 to 10, based on both overall quality and how well they paired with oysters.  And of all the hot sauce puns I could say here to kick things off, like "Time to turn up the heat!" or "Who's feeling saucy?," I most prefer my friend's brilliantly crass "Things are gonna get spicy...better put the toilet paper in the freezer!"  Let's go! 

Louisiana Style Hot Sauces

Best to start with the hot sauces you'll see at 99% of all oyster bars - Louisiana style.  After all, Tabasco is the original gangsta', and is largely credited with both commercializing hot sauce and stamping the hot sauce & oyster association on the American psyche.  The pairing makes a lot of sense too.  Oysters go well with acid to counterbalance the salinity, and Louisiana style hot sauces are always very vinegar forward.  Add a spicy kick to that and you've got a pairing that rivals peanut butter & jelly.  Tried and true, let's see what you've got:

• Tabasco - Original Red Pepper Sauce - Full transparency, I don't like Tabasco.  Never have and, as confirmed by this trial, never will.  It's an incredibly distinct flavor unlike any other hot sauce.  It can't be the fermentation, pepper species, or barrel aging, as I enjoy several hot sauces that use the same methods.  Perhaps it's just a combination of all three that leads to a sharp, astringent flavor that doesn't sit right.  To each their own, but 2/10 for me.   
• Crystal Hot Sauce - the true OG of Louisiana style hot sauces in my mind.  Crystal feels like a cleaner, brighter version of Tabasco.  Tangy, slightly smoky, and a much more cayenne pepper primary, vinegar secondary feel.  Solid 6/10.  
• Louisiana Brand Hot Sauce - Full transparency again, I love Louisiana Brand Hot Sauce.  Of all the Louisiana style hot sauces to pair with oysters, this has always been my go to.  It's definitely got that vinegar bite, but has a stronger, saltier pepper flavor, as well as a richer viscosity that texturally works well on an oyster.  7/10.
  
  
  
  

Chesapeake Style Hot Sauces

I love Old Bay.  Fuckin' love it!  Old Bay potato chips, Old Bay peanuts, even Old Bay Goldfish.  I simply can't get enough.  No joke, I've been talked out of getting an Old Bay tattoo on more than one occasion.  While traditionally paired with crab and shrimp, I had to explore how the classic Old Bay or Chesapeake / crab seasoning hot sauces might work on oysters.  My gut told me they'd be too overpowering, but I still had to find out: 

• Pepper Palace - Chesapeake Bay Hot Sauce - On the topic of OGs, Pepper Palace certainly claims that spot in terms of hot sauce makers.  Founded in 1989, it boasts 50+ hand-crafted hot sauces and 100+ retail outlets across North America.  The Palace was well ahead of the curve, decades before the hot sauce renaissance and outlets like Hot Ones' Heatonist.  No hot sauce exploration would be complete without a visit, and their Chesapeake Bay variety shockingly struck all chords with oysters.  Silky, spicy, comforting.  A delightfully surprising and highly recommended 7/10.  
  
• Delaware Sauce Co. - Ghost of the Chesapeake Hot Sauce  - I wanted to pepper in (all pun intended) a few locally made hot sauces in these trials, and Delaware Sauce Company is only a few hours from my hometown.  Unfortunately, going local didn't equate to quality this time around, at least when paired with oysters.  It felt like more of a heat bomb with subtle crab seasoning undertones, both of which overwhelmed the oyster.  It also had an unpleasant grittiness that was amplified on an oyster.  4/10.
• Old Bay Hot Sauce - Old Bay Hot Sauce is a bit misleading.  Don't get me wrong, I do like the product.  However, it's not a hot sauce.  It's more akin to Taco Bell hot sauce, just substituting the taco seasoning for Old Bay seasoning.  Deployed in the right situation, it's great.  On oysters, not so much.  It's very single note with the Old Bay, and had that same unpleasant grittiness.  9/10 for their seasoning, but 4/10 for their hot sauce. 
  
  

Seafood or Oyster Marketed Hot Sauces

This one was tricky and got a little out of hand.  There are hundreds of hot sauce styles and brands around the world that are either marketed to be paired with seafood, or are commonly known to go well with seafood.  Mexican salsa marisquera, a number of Caribbean hot sauces, Hawaiian chili pepper water, lemon pepper hot sauces, not to mention all the Southeast Asian staples like tuk trey koh kong, muối ớt xanh or nam jim jaew.  Even the Louisiana and Chesapeake styles fall into this category.  So, once again drawing the line somewhere, I tried to get a few branded hot sauces that broadly touched as many of these varieties as possible:    

• Culichi Negra Seafood Hot Sauce - I didn't have much familiarity with salsa marisquera until this project, but man am I glad I discovered it.  There are a few available on the market, but everything I read pointed to Culichi being the best.  And wow was it the best.  Toasty, savory, spicy, tangy, sweet.  All possible flavors packaged tightly into one drop.  It's viscous and has a slight pipián granularity to it, but goes great on oysters, and pretty much everything else I imagine.  Top of the charts with a 9/10, and I'm excited to try others.  
• Smoke City Foods - Lowcountry Oyster Sauce - While Louisiana arguably owns North America's preeminent hot sauce & oyster culture, the Southeast's Lowcountry is a close rival.  It needed some representation here, and Smoke City Foods' oyster sauce seemed appropriate.  Sadly, it didn't deliver, tasting like a mild, watered down cocktail sauce.  I guess their tagline of "Not Just Another Hot Sauce" was right, just in the wrong ways. 2/10.
• Pepper Palace - Horseradish Oyster Hot Sauce - I initially visited Pepper Palace for this exact variety.  Their Chesapeake Bay version was an auxiliary pick up that evolved into the entire Chesapeake Style category.  While Pepper Palace is wholly deserving of praise, it also feels kind of gimmicky or tourist-trappy.  Just look at their locations.  And their oyster hot sauce woefully echoed this.  It was mainly bland ketchup and horseradish forward with negligible heat. 2/10. 
• The Starboard - Raw Seafood Hot Sauce - I had to go local again for at least one sauce in this category.  Luckily, The Starboard in Dewey Beach, Delaware has their own line of retail sauces, and their Raw Seafood Hot Sauce seemed perfectly aligned.  Unluckily, it was yet another version semi-spicy, watery cocktail sauce.  What's going on, America?  Think creatively!  It's possible to make a good oyster hot sauce without reverting directly to cocktail sauce.  3/10. 
• Vastana's Citrus Hot Sauce - I scoured the internet for hours trying to find the right Southeast Asian style hot sauce, and I realize that only trying one is a massive disservice to the range and diversity inspired by the region's various cultures.  However, I think I chose well with Vatsana's citrus hot sauce.  Unlike any other sauce in the lineup, acid from the lime and umami from the anchovy extract brought a whole new complexity of flavor, especially when paired with an oyster.  It wasn't a powerhouse on the heat, but really opened my eyes to the possibilities of pairing any sauce with oysters.  9/10.     
  
  

Oyster Made or Endorsed Hot Sauces

Who better to ask "what hot sauce goes best with oysters" than those who grow them?  Surely their expertise would provide some legit pairings.  First, I turned my research to oyster companies making their own hot sauces.  There were quite a few, or at least quite a few that did at some point and time.  I encountered several broken links, out of stocks, and 404 errors.  Oyster farming and web coding aren't exactly the same skill set.  So, given the limited availability, I had to expand my search to hot sauce & oyster farm partnerships or endorsements.  I'm sure this won't age well, as links will have returned, new partnerships formed, and more oyster farms will start making their own.  But here we are:

• Rappahannock Oyster Co. Hot Sauce - I've always been a big fan of Rappahannock Oyster Co.  They're one of the more prominent voices in Chesapeake oyster restoration, help out-of-work fishermen establish new careers in aquaculture, and raise a phenomenal variety of oysters.  I had high hopes for their hot sauce as such, but it mostly missed the mark.  Felt like a bootleg Tabasco.  Sorry guys.  Love ya, but I've got to keep it real.  2/10.    
  
• Lowcountry Oyster Co. Hot Sauce - I'm not very familiar with Lowcountry Oyster Co. as they were recently formed in 2017, but it was one of the few oyster farms I found that currently made their own hot sauce.  And if their oysters are anything like their hot sauce, they're doing things right.  It was straight Louisiana style, both vinegar and cayenne forward, but had a depth of flavor and pleasing heat the mainstays couldn't hold a candle to.  Move over, Nawlins, there's a new hot sauce & oyster sheriff in town!  9/10. 
• Barnacle Foods - Bullwhip Hot Sauce - Located in Juneau, Alaska, Barnacle Foods sources locally grown seaweed and turns it into familiar culinary products.  Most notably, they make a hot sauce that's endorsed and sold by Island Creek Oysters, Taylor Shellfish, and several other oyster farms.  Made with kelp and piri piri peppers, it's rich, velvety, and packed with savory heat, almost like mushrooms braised in spicy seawater.  Great on oysters, and probably everything else.  8/10.  
  
• Splat - Hot Sauce Mignonette - Hama Hama Oysters and Splat Hot Sauce partnered to make this exclusive product, and it tastes exactly like it sounds; a perfect mixture of spicy hot sauce and piquant mignonette.  All of Splat's hot sauces are fermented, so it had an extra layer of flavorful funk.  And while it might not be the best multipurpose hot sauce, it works perfectly on oysters.  Mission set and goal accomplished by this partnership.  A praiseworthy 7/10. 
  

The SF Oyster Nerd Hot Sauce

Homegrown Peppers

After all fifteen hot sauce & oyster pairings, I really only landed on one truth - whatever tastes good to you will likely taste good on an oyster.  This is not a steadfast rule, as some hot sauces definitely heighten the qualities of an oyster, while others will eclipse them entirely.  But even with the latter, you've still got a texturally pleasant and briny delivery mechanism for your favorite hot sauce.  Perhaps not the most economical of choices, but certainly not a bad experience.  So, when approaching my own homemade hot sauce, I decided to simply make the best, tastiest, full-flavored hot sauce I could.  

L - Charred and Fresh Peppers
R - Fermenting Peppers

Earlier in the year, with this very project in mind, I'd planted Hungarian Wax, Habanero, Jalapeño, and Cayenne peppers.  All the research I later did really piqued my interest in growing more obscure or heirloom peppers, but that's for next season.  After several weeks of devoted attention and cultivation, the peppers popped, ripened, and were ready for harvest.  As my goal was to maximize flavor, I combined several hot sauce styles and approaches into one.  I broke down the peppers, removing the majority of the seeds as they can bring an undesired bitterness.  I also removed most of the peppers' placenta, specifically the habaneros' and the cayennes'.  I wanted spicy, but not pain-inducing like those peppers can often deliver.  Next, I left half the peppers fresh to keep some bright flavor notes and charred the other half to get a smoky sweetness.  Finally, I packed it all into a brine solution in a fermentation jar, along with a little bit of garlic.  This would add savory, salty, and tangy to the final product.

After fourteen long days of closely monitoring the ferment, it was time to make hot sauce.  I strained the peppers and blended them with a little bit of the reserved brine and some lime juice, then ran it through a sieve to remove pulp and particulate.  I wanted a slightly viscous sauce, like the ones I'd enjoyed, so I refrained from running it through cheesecloth or a coffee filter.  Xanthan gum would have helped, but this sauce was going to be au naturel.  I tasted it a few times, adjusted with a few pinches of salt and sugar, then proceeded to bottling.

The SF Oyster Nerd Hot Sauce

The final product was quite tasty indeed.  Right amount of smoke, right amount of sweet, right amount of tang, right amount of heat.  I even created my own SF Oyster Nerd branding for the bottles, Little Fat Boy Frankie style.  The only issue I couldn't walk back was a slight bitterness, most likely from using a little too much of the ferment brine that had developed some kahm yeast.  Lesson learned for The SF Oyster Nerd Hot Sauce 2.0 version.  All in all, I was pretty satisfied, especially when enjoying it on half a dozen oysters.  I'll go with an unbiased 6/10 here, leaving ample room for improvement on my next batch. 

I thoroughly enjoyed my hot sauce & oyster pairing adventure.  From the start, I knew the tastings and homemade hot sauce would be fun, but I had no idea what a delight all the reading and research around the subject would be.  I hope you get out there and enjoy some hot sauce & oysters yourself sometime soon.  Better yet, make your own hot sauce and bring it along for a day trip to your closest oyster farm.  Trust me, you won't regret either.

Cheers,

The SF Oyster Nerd

Fruits de Mer Français

Toy Sailboats in Luxembourg Gardens

My wife and I recently braved a transatlantic flight to France with our two toddlers.  While I wouldn't recommend it from a travel perspective - apparently even Bluey and Paw Patrol have their limits on an eight hour plane ride - the trip itself was incredible.  The old world beauty and glamour of Paris paired perfectly with the raucous joy and energy of Euro Disney, all bookended with a quick stint in dynamically charming Marseille.   The trip didn't want for much as we made several memories that will last a lifetime.  And while it was largely, and appropriately, family focused with park hikes, trolley rides, playground visits, even some McDonald's nuggets, you know I had to squeeze in a few stellar meals.  French McDonald's is way better than in the States, by the way.  

But where to begin?  French food, to say the least, is daunting.  It's world-renowned by many as the pinnacle of cuisine.  Things are certainly changing with new dining establishments drawing inspiration from various international foodways.  Even then, a lot of the foundations are still French techniques.  During the trip I had some internal difficulty truly defining French food.  Sure, there are several easily identifiable French classics like beef bourguignon, coq au vin, and cassoulet.  At most restaurants, though, I thought, "huh, is this really French? Just seems like a normal dish to me."  I soon realized yes, that is French, because a lot of what I think of as standard cuisine is in fact French based.  Sous-vide - French.  Sautéed - French.  Poached - French.  Puréed - French.  Proteins simply and well-prepared paired with flavorful sauces and sides - largely French.  Undeniably, similar cooking styles have been practiced around the world for centuries.  But the French, with notable 19th century chefs like Carême and Escoffier, codified and propagated these methods and disciplines.  Very little of what we contemporarily eat, especially when dining out, doesn't have some French fingerprints or DNA, somewhere.

French Oyster Vending Machine - via GrubStreet

Even when narrowing to seafood only, it remained a formidable exploration.  There's an ardent affinity for seafood in France dating back centuries.  King Louis XIV, known for his voracious appetite and opulent royal court dinners, demanded fresh fish, mollusks, and crustaceans be carted in daily from both French coasts.  Balzac, the French novelist, often ate 100 oysters before a meal.  Preserving food by canning was invented in the early 1800s in France to feed traveling armies; one of the very first canned foods was sardines, reportedly a favorite of Napoleon that he saw most fit for his soldiers.  April Fools' Day in France is known as poisson d'avril, or April Fish.  Bouillabaisse, Coquilles Saint-Jacques, Moules Marinières, and Tuna Niçoise are all world-renowned French seafood dishes with long histories that are celebrated to this day.  Shit, there's even a literal oyster vending machine in Normandy.  Suffice it to say that France really likes its fruits de mer. 

This was all too much for too brief a trip.  So, in short, I said "tant pis, let's see what happens."  The following is a recount of my best effort exploration of French seafood between late nights with jetlagged toddlers and exhaustingly long waits in Euro Disney theme park lines.  Allons-y!

Le Dôme Café

Le Dôme's Opulent Entrance

First stop had to be a classic French, seafood-focused brasserie, and no place better embodies that than Le Dôme Café.  Opened in 1898 in the swanky Montparnasse neighborhood, it has a long history of regularly serving many of history's intellectual elites.  Hemingway, Lenin, Picasso, Gauguin, Henry Miller.  All gathered here to gossip and exchange opinions on art, philosophy, world affairs, literature, and so on.  They even came to be known as the Dômiers.  Le Dôme is also the kind of place that comes to mind when you imagine vintage Parisian dining, almost Ratatouille-esque.  Decadent decor, professionally attired staff, proper etiquette, Château wines, escargot, pan-seared foie gras.  Candidly, it was not my most anticipated stop, as it screams tourist trap.  But it was a box that had to be checked.  And hey, I've been wrong about touristy places before.

I arrived at the height of the lunch rush on a busy Sunday afternoon hoping for a modest table for one.  Le Dôme also has a fresh fish retailer next door I would have loved to visit, but fermé le dimanche.  I passed by their raw bar, nicely displayed on the sidewalk, and entered a restaurant full of raucous diners and bustling staff.  I waited to be greeted for 2 minutes.  Then 4 minutes.  Then 6 minutes.  I thought, "holy shit, is this the 'ignore the stupid American in his street jeans and H&M hoodie' cliché you so frequently hear about Paris dining."  Turns out, no.  I was the asshole who walked in through the exit, not the entrance.  A staff member eventually saw my confusion and kindly directed me to the host stand, after which I was promptly, and welcomingly, seated at my own table.  Apologies to Le Dôme for my presumption.

In terms of the menu, Le Dôme has all the French seafood standards like roasted turbot in bearnaise and lobster flambéed in cognac.  I was pleasantly surprised by some less-than-classic preparations like monkfish tandoori and salmon sashimi.  The establishment is most famous for its sole meunière, a classic French dish consisting of lightly floured flat fish pan-fried and covered in a lemon and brown butter sauce.  A la meunière translates to "in the style of the miller's wife," hence the light coating of milled flour.  Seeing as how Le Dôme's version traditionally serves two and costs close to $95, I couldn't justify the order.  Luckily, another menu staple there is aile de jeune raie meunière, or skate wing meunière.  I love skate wings, and absolutely had to try Le Dôme's meunière.  Un, s'il vous plait!

Aile de jeune raie meunière

After a few minutes of waiting, watching scurrying staff, and listening to all the global dialects of fellow diners, my aile de jeune raie meunière finally arrived.  A large, beautifully pan-seared "bone-in" skate wing topped with fresh parsley, brined caper buds, and scallions, all covered in a brown butter and lemon sauce.  The sauce was delightful.  Bright and piquant with sharp lemon notes, balanced out by a deep and nutty, brown butter flavor.  A+.  The skate wing, unfortunately, was a bit overcooked.  Don't get me wrong, I've had and cooked skate wings dozens of times.  I'm aware it's a much softer textured fish than most due to high levels of collagen in its cartilage.  This cut, however, had little to no grain or tooth left whatsoever and was basically mush.  In hindsight, I should have gone for the sole meunière.  Next time, perhaps.  I can say that Le Dôme, as an experience, was a rather insightful and pleasant first step into the vibrant dining scene of Paris.  The people watching alone is worth the visit.  I even stuck around for un café after my meal just to take it all in.    

Huitrerie Régis

Huitrerie Régis' Modest Entrance

Next stop, of course, an oyster bar.  There's an unparalleled appreciation of oysters in France.  Most seafood aficionados I've encountered of any demographic hold oysters in special regard, but the French doubly so.  Every market, bistro, or brasserie you pass in Paris has an oyster selection, bar, or station prominently displayed.  There's even a French restaurant position known as écailler, an oyster master and seafood specialist whose job is exclusively chilled seafood platters or plateaus des fruits de mer.  Oysters aren't just reserved for fine dining, either.  France has a robust home-shucking culture.  Case in point, oyster vending machines.  Oysters accompany everything from casual Sunday dinners to opulent holiday celebrations.  The latter are particularly oyster centric as the French are hyper-sensitive to seasonality, consuming 50% of their annual oysters at peak quality in the winter months.  

Huitrerie Régis' French Oyster Menu
(Yes, in English.  I don't speak French.)

I could go on and on about the purity, nuance, and just all-around joy of French and Parisian oyster history and culture.  There are several books dedicated to the subject.  However, my favorite thing about French oyster culture is its codification.  In the States, oysters are pretty much marketed by name, and name only.  As long as purveyors disclose where and when their oysters were harvested, they can call them whatever they please.  Unfortunately, this has essentially condoned legal fraud through the exploitation of famous oyster names like Blue Point, Miyagi, Belon, and others.  Vendors know they'll sell more oysters if they have notable names, so many random oysters end up being re-labeled as such.  The only things protecting quality for a consumer in the US oyster market are honest purveyors and trademarked names.  When ordering a Blue Point, you don't truly know what you're going to get.  Small, large, fat, lean, fresh, poor, wild, farmed, hailing from Maine down to North Carolina.  I can't stand Jim Gaffigan, but his schtick on seafood does make a bit more sense with this in mind.     

Gillardeau Oyster Engraving

The French, on the other hand, have strict regulations and classifications for much of their food and beverage, and their oysters are no different.  First, oysters are sized n°0 - n°5, zero being the largest and five being the smallest.  Next, they're always detailed by farmer, location, and species (huître creuse or huître plate).  Finally, specific oyster names denote regulated grow-out methods and standards.  For example, a fine de claire is an oyster that's required to spend no less than 28 days in a specialized salt pond.  A speciale de claire spends two to three months in these ponds, and a pousse en claire four months-plus.  Each name also carries limitations on the number of oysters that can be grown in the ponds at once, allowing for better feeding and filtering conditions.  The result, in ascending order, is a meatier, richer, more deeply flavored oyster (and more expensive, of course).  Beyond that, you've got Belons, which require grow-out in a particular river; vertes, that feed on specific blue-green algae; perles, the equivalent of vintners select; farms like Gillardeau who literally engrave their oysters for brand protection, and more.  While certainly intricate, and seemingly overcomplicated, these practices developed over the last 120 years equate to assurances of caliber and quality for us, the consumer.

So, how could all of these considerations be embodied in one oyster bar visit?  Simple - I went to Huitrerie Régis, a humble 12-seat shop in Paris' Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood that takes its oysters very seriously.  If you're looking for a broader French seafood dining experience, look elsewhere.  But if you're out for just oysters and wines, Huitrerie Régis is your spot.  It's literally all they serve.  Oysters, French wines, some chilled prawns, clams, sea urchin, and maybe an apple tart if the owner is feeling up for it that day.  While seemingly limiting at first glance, Régis' truncated menu translates to no less than the highest quality raw bar in all of Paris.  Even one of the previously mentioned books is almost entirely focused on Huitrerie Régis.

Huitrerie Régis oyster fork

At Huitrerie Régis, they do not separate the bottom adductor muscles from oysters, providing a special fork for you to do so on your own.  This is actually standard in almost all of France too.  From my understanding, there are two rationales behind it.  First, oysters are to be consumed at peak freshness, and keeping them intact as much as possible right up to consumption achieves this.  Great, if you'd like to believe that.  Second, much more interestingly and logically, this prevents a lot of aforementioned fraud.  As certain oysters grew in popularity throughout the 20th century, less scrupulous vendors would take lower quality oysters and place them in recognizable shells, selling them as Belons or claires.  Keeping the adductor attached demonstrates no funny business has transpired.  This is more of a best practice than regulation, but it seems to be widely observed by the French and I can appreciate that.

Mixed Dozen huîtres creuses with two huîtres plates and crevettes de Madagascar

  As for my meal at Huitrerie Régis, I enjoyed a mix of fines de claires and speciales de claires Yves Papin from France's oyster basket, the Marennes-Oléron basin, along with speciales perles noires  and plates Cadoret from the famed Riec-sur-Bélon region.  All were perfectly shucked and presented, something that's surprisingly hard to find when dining out for oysters anywhere in the world.  As for the quality, I hope not to offend here, but the claire oysters reminded me a lot of Irish oysters the few times I've had them.  I mean that in the best ways.  The fines were firmly textured and salt forward, with a sweet seaweed finish.  The speciales were similar, just fuller bodied with a richer mouthfeel.  The plates, or proper Belon flat oysters, were much more mild than the variety we grow stateside.  They certainly had that familiar coppery metallic flavor, but I got much more of a luscious, sweet cream finish from them.  Very tasty.  But, far and away, the perles noires were my favorite.  Quite briny up front with a toothsome crunch, almost like a raw clam, and a super clean, crisp finish.  I fully understand the hype around Belon River oysters after tasting these gems, as well as the hype around Huitrerie Régis.  I couldn't have imagined a better Parisian oyster experience.  

La Cagouille

La Cagouille's Unassuming Entrance

My third stop was completely based on real time, in-person, Parisian recommendations.  I'd done a bit of research to pick out Le Dôme and Huitrerie Régis, as well as Clamato, which I was unfortunately unable to visit.  But, with any trip, I like to leave room for local and industry insights.  I've talked about it before, but online forums like Yelp or TripAdvisor rarely get things right, and established media like Eater or The Infatuation often leave out several quality places.  So, I started asking around.  My wife's good friend and our host gave me a few recommendations.  A local butcher down the street, who happened to speak immaculate English, provided a few more.  Then, my server at Huitrerie Régis rounded the list out with some additions.  Clamato was mentioned a few times, as was Le Duc.  I'd previously identified both in my own research as potential stops.  However, there was one restaurant on all the lists that somehow had escaped my Google deep dives on Parisian seafood, and that was La Cagouille. 

La Cagouille Menu

Demurely cloaked behind some greenery at the base of a Montparnasse apartment complex, La Cagouille was opened in 1981 with a simple credo - Poissons, Vins et Cognacs or Fish, Wine, and Cognac.  And the menu, written out daily on white boards, reflects this approach.  While the interior channels Mediterranean yacht from the Eighties with captain's wheels and sail pulleys all over the walls, the menu couldn't be more straightforward.  Fresh ingredients prepared simply and paired with flavorful sauces.  Quintessentially French.  Also, based on the clientele, I was confident the recommendations were spot on.  Whereas Le Dôme was an eclectic mix of Americans, Japanese, Swedish, etc., La Cagouille was 100% French, elder French at that.  Pretty sure I was the only diner under 50.  Decades of experienced French palates all in one place for lunch was promising.

As it was abundantly obvious I was American, the owner was kind enough to come over and translate the majority of the menu for me as best he could.  We both filled in the rest with some quick Google translate.  Oysters, crudos, scallop tartare, grilled octopus, fried smelt.  It all sounded delicious.  I ordered couteaux beurre citronné (razor clams citrus butter) and st-pierre grillé beurre et cerfeuil (grilled john dory with butter and chervil).  

Couteaux beurre citronné and St-pierre grillé beurre et cerfeuil

Honestly, there's not much to say about La Cagouille other than it was really good.  And I mean really fuckin' good.  Much praise owed to those who recommended this place.  The razor clams were incredibly fresh and flavorful, and covered in a bright citrus butter sauce with candied orange peels.  The john dory was a perfectly charred medium-rare and paired with a deep, herbaceous butter sauce.  Isn't there a famous saying?  "What are the three secrets of French cooking? Butter, butter, and more butter?"  It's likely a bit more complicated than that at La Cagouille, but all the butter certainly didn't hurt.  Whatever their secrets are, I hope they keep them up for another thirty years.  I highly recommend La Cagouille to anyone visiting Paris, and it will genuinely be my first stop whenever I make it back. 

Restuarant Chez Michel

Chez Michel's Beachside Entrance

Final stop for our family vacation was the beautiful port city of Marseille.  As the oldest city in France, dating back to 600 B.C., Marseille has a rich history as a cultural nexus for art, philosophy, literature, sport, architecture, and of course, cuisine.  And no dish is more famous or representative of that cuisine than bouillabaisse marseillaise.  I'll admit that before this trip, I had a very loose sense of what bouillabaisse was.  I thought it was just a French seafood soup or stew, endemic to Marseille, with differences based on style and ingredient availability.  Fish stock, maybe clarified, maybe with tomatoes.  Plenty of seasoning and a variety of vegetables.  Clams?  Why not.  Some sort of white fish?  Of course.  Mussels, shrimp, squid, crab?  Sure, whatever you've got.  However, what I learned was quite the opposite.

The word bouillabaisse is a combination of medieval Provençal Occitan words bolhir (to boil) and abaissar (to lower).  The soup base is first brought to a vigorous boil to extract the flavors of ingredients and emulsify added olive oil.  It's then brought down to a simmer to both infuse those flavors and gently cook the seafood, which is added at the end.  Like most seafood stews or chowders, bouillabaisse's beginnings are hotly debated, but likely started with humble fishermen.  Whether they were Greek, Arabic, Roman, North African, or of various French origins is at the crux of that debate.  Either way, the story is likely the same.  Fishermen would sell their quality catch at the market and piece together the remaining scraps or bycatch to feed their families.  The best way to stretch these, and make them flavorful, was by making a stew.  To this day, for most native Marseillais, bouillabaisse is a dish reserved for family, usually made at home, and rarely enjoyed at restaurants.

Bouillabaisse Ingredients via TasteAtlas

In the mid-19th century, bouillabaisse began regularly showing up on restaurants' menus in Marseille.  Soon, it took hold as the city's emblematic dish, becoming more popular and more demanded.  From a poor man's to a posh man's meal, affluent tourists started paying top dollar for an "authentic" bouillabaisse in Marseille.  Much like the aforementioned oyster deceit, some less reputable operations began exploiting bouillabaisse's popularity by hawking poor, inauthentic, or even deceitful versions to these none-the-wiser tourists.  Contemporary investigations still regularly show widespread fraud in the seafood industry, bouillabaise included.  In reaction to the diminishment of their beloved dish, over a dozen Marseille-based restauranteurs came together in 1980 and established la Charte de la Bouillabaisse Marseillaise or the Bouillabaisse Charter, codifying bouillabaise's ingredients, preparations, and presentations.  Those rules are:

• Fresh, never frozen, local Mediterranean fish must be used
• Rascasse (scorpion fish) must be a base for the soup
• At least three other fish from a variety of conger eel, john dory, skate, red gurnard, red mullet, monkfish, or weever fish must be included in the base for the soup
• Other required ingredients include saffron, fennel, high quality olive oil, tomatoes, garlic, and onions.
• The soup should be served first, with additional fish or shellfish presented separately and filleted tableside (preventing mislabeled cuts of fish making their way into the soup)
• Garlic croutons and rouille, a spicy pepper and saffron aioli, should be served alongside the soup   

This sounded an awful lot like European Union food or beverage protections, much like pizza napoletana, champagne, and many other products or dishes have.  I have a weird, paradoxical relationship with culinary protections.  On one hand, I fully appreciate them, even want for them in the States in many ways.  They ensure quality, benefit consumers, preserve producers, and maintain tradition.  At the same time, they can undeniably stifle innovation.  In more extreme circumstances, they can be emblems of hyper-nationalism and thinly-veiled bigotry.  There's certainly an issue with innovation when it comes from those who don't fully understand and value foundational tradition.  Disrupting is fashionable right now, and everybody's eager to be the next big disruptor.  However, things too frequently go awry when wannabe disruptors aren't well educated on that which they're disrupting.  Sure, there's something to be said for not being indoctrinated and remaining an outsider, but fully understanding the logic and reason for an industry's landscape is a baseline requirement for the credibility to disrupt it.

Now, I fully understand the founders of the Bouillabaisse Charter didn't have the next Steve Jobs of seafood stews in mind when drafting the guidelines.  Their goal was to curb the debasement of bouillabaisse marseillaise with lower quality frozen and fraudulent exploits popping up all over the city.  Who knows, though.  Maybe they were the true visionaries who saw A.I. generated, 3D printed bouillabaisses on the horizon.  Jokes aside, they did acknowledge the importance of the cook's artistry and innovation in the Charter's introduction:

Fresh Fish Display at Chez Michel

"It is not possible to standardize cooking. Indeed it is an art in which success depends on the chef's savoir-faire. Bouillabaisse, however, the most typical dish of Marseilles, includes precise ingredients which are important to use if traditions are to be respected and the customer is not to be cheated."

The Bouillabaisse Charter is also not an enforceable regulation, like other EU culinary protections.  It's more of a coalition of restaurants subscribing to standards and practices to guarantee quality and safeguard the bouillabaisse brand.  Makes sense, and I genuinely applaud that effort.  But, after learning all this, where the hell was I going to get my bouillabaisse?  After some research, I found a restaurant that was the reported "local's choice," the past recipient of a Michelin star, and even frequented by French presidents.  This was Chez Michel.  Politics aside, I figured if it was good enough for Macron, it was good enough for me and my daughter.  The whole family joined, but she's my only adventurous seafood eater.   

Bouillabaisse Fish Presentation

Located in the Les Catalans neighborhood of Marseille overlooking the city's beach, Chez Michel is a family owned brasserie that has been specializing in Provençal seafood since 1946.  Four generations of bouillabaisserrie have made it local institution.  Matter of fact, bouillabaisse is pretty much the only thing on the menu aside from some grilled fish, a few oysters, and fried squid.  As previously noted, native Marseillais typically make their own bouillabaisse at home for family and special occasions.  However, if they are dining out, Chez Michel is the reputed go to.  The interior feels like you're still walking into 1946, almost like a scene from Big Night, just French and with a giant, whole fish display front and center.  The restaurant is full of copper mirrors, vintage blinds, and Baroque murals of seascapes.  The wait staff even look like tactful French pirates with gold ring earrings and silver, marauder style haircuts.

Bouillabaise de Chez Michel

My first bouillabaise marseillaise

After being seated, I promptly ordered a bouillabaisse for one in my infantile French.  No English here.  The server even jokingly looked to my daughter, thinking she may be of help in our language barriered communications.  Once we understood each other, he swiftly departed and returned to show me the uncooked whole fish for my meal.  Red gurnard, conger eel, and weever fish.  Respect for the transparency.  About 20 minutes later, another server returned with a simmering cauldron and a plate of the poached whole fish with potato rounds.  He ladled the deep orange, saffron packed soup into my bowl, then proceeded to filet the fish and present them separately, classic marseillaise style.  Ample amounts of garlic croutons and rouille were provided as well.  I know, I was seriously skeptical of mixing mayonnaise into my seafood soup, but it bizarrely works.  The fish were cooked and filleted perfectly and had tons of seasoning from the poaching.  The soup itself was not just deep in color, but flavor as well.  Slightly spicy with heavy garlic and thyme notes and a dominating oceanic, low-tide essence.  It reminded me of the gaminess in lobster tomalley or crab fat, and had a unique, borderline gritty texture.  With such intense flavor, the rouille now made sense to cut through and brighten the richness.  I did enjoy it, but a single serving was plenty.  It's certainly not a dish for the faint of seafood heart.  However, if you're a seafood fanatic, it's an absolute must on the bucket list.  My 2-year-old loved it, so I imagine you would too.

While this was admittedly a ton I was able to pack into a brief family trip, it's just the tip of the Fruits de Mer Français iceberg.  I still want to explore the history of sauce américaine, visit the oyster farms in Marennes-Oléron, try authentic salade niçoise in Nice, find the best matelote in Alsace, and eat moules in Normandy.  There's likely much more I'm not even aware of, so please do share.  I'd love to return to France to explore further, and hope you have the opportunity to visit soon too.

Bises,

The SF Oyster Nerd