Oysters & Melons

Full transparency, my annual oyster & gardening post didn't quite go as planned this year.  I've had a lot of fun with some previous projects: "shucked" ceviche with garden fresh peas and corn, homegrown chile peppers for oyster hot sauce, even pairing eggs from our neighbors' chicken coop with oysters.  For this year's, I started in late 2025 by attempting to grow a perennial known as oyster leaf.  Also known as oyster plant, oyster leaf is in the borage family and closely related to Virginia blue bells.  Relatively rare and prized by chefs, it's got a succulent, snappy texture like a nopales, and a clean saline, oceanic taste like, well, an oyster.  I've only had it once, over a decade ago, while living in San Francisco.  In the States, it's difficult to find outside of the areas it grows wild or is now cultivated, like the North Atlantic or Pacific Northwest.  So naturally, I tried growing it.  And unfortunately, I continue to try growing it.  Direct sow, paper towel sprouting, cell trays with starter mixes, Aerogarden, cold stratification.  Plugs or starts are practically impossible to source, and Mertensia are notoriously difficult to germinate, so I've learned.  I haven't reached the point of defeat just yet, but my oyster leaf escapades are tracking for summer 2027 at the earliest.

But for 2026, things looked dire, as if my annual oyster & gardening post was not going to happen.  Then, as a saving grace, the Tuscan cantaloupe I'd planted back in April went gangbusters, providing some inspiration in oyster & melon pairings.  Oysters, with their natural brininess and minerality, are complemented well by sweet and tart.  Lemon, lime, grapefruit, blood orange, even pomegranate, apple, and stone fruit are commonly served or paired with oysters in some way.  Melons most certainly check that box.  Some Pacific oysters (Magallana gigas) also have slight cucumber or melon flavor profiles.  I've had Kusshis that tasted like straight Watermelon Jolly Ranchers.  So, as my kids and I eagerly awaited over half a dozen melons to ripen on the vine, I started thinking of oyster & melon combinations.

Usually I do some sort of deep subject matter dive in my posts, or at least try to.  The history of Atlantic City, the global dissemination of capsicums, debates around combining cheese and seafood.  But, here we are with my 11th hour, slapdick plan B: oysters & melons.  I'm not saying oysters & melons is a bad idea.  Far from it.  I just want to acknowledge that I'm leaving a lot of fun history, botany, and culture around melons on the table here.  That said, I had to at least provide a bit of detail on what I find interesting about melons, so here we go.
  

I like melons.  Melons taste great.  People have been eating melons for millennia.  Nobody seems to agree on whether melon cultivation originated in Sub-Saharan Africa or the Middle East, but thank you to whoever figured it out.  Some foods that we call melons aren't actually melons, like pepino melons or bitter melons.  Other foods, like Armenian cucumbers, are actually melons, scientifically speaking.  Taxonomic vs. culinary classifications are often weird.  Some growers have been hybridizing and creating cool, new melon varieties, like the Sugar Kiss or Lemon Drop.  Personally, I prefer the big ol' natural melons, though I like augmented melons and little melons too.  Today, melons are available year round thanks to global supply chains.  But, in the Mid-Atlantic, melons are best local and in the late summer months.  When in season, few things can beat a cool, sweet slice of melon on a warm, balmy day.  So, with a few dozen oysters and a mélange of melons, let's get our mel-on!

Oysters & Melon Caviar

Oysters topped with caviar is a classic pairing, and oysters and caviar actually share a similar history.  In the 19th century, oysters were abundant and cheap in Europe and North America.  While consumed by all classes, they often had a distinction as a poor man's food.  Charles Dickens famously wrote "poverty and oysters always seem to go together."  At the same time, caviar-producing sturgeon were incredibly abundant across the East Coast.  Exhausted sturgeon populations had already made caviar a prized luxury in Europe, but it was readily available and cheap in the States.  The US was even the world's leading caviar exporter in the mid-1800s.  However, due to its perishability, the US had more caviar than it could either consume or ship across the Atlantic — so much that it was literally handed out as a free bar snack, just like peanuts or popcorn.  Over-fishing and clever marketing of the early 20th century made oysters and caviar the culinary status symbols they are today.  However, for a few decades in America, oysters and caviar were foods for the masses, enjoyed by all.

          

To turn my melons into caviar for an oyster accoutrement, my mind immediately went molecular gastronomy and spherification.  You know, those pretty little popping pearls of cranberry juice or gin & tonic you see on Top Chef?  However, time is the real luxury when you've got young kids, and science is hard.  So I pivoted and got the most adorable little melon baller available, making my oysters & melon caviar a much more approachable project.  I shucked half a dozen Mystic oysters from Connecticut, plated on some ice, and proceeded to ball various melons.  Korean melon, watermelon, canary melon, honeydew melon, all from various local markets, and of course the Tuscan cantaloupe from our garden. 

In hindsight, I should have tried each oyster with a single melon variety to get a solid sense of which worked best.  Look at all those pretty colors, though.  We're all victims of the Instagramification of our cuisine, I suppose.  I also think this oyster & melon caviar preparation would be much better with Pacific oysters and their fruity, vegetal notes.  However, I can confidently say that the Korean melon was far and away the best pairing.  Its crisp texture and more-tart-than-sweet flavor, almost like a cucumber and Asian pear hybrid, contrasted perfectly with the supple and briny oysters.  I'd love to try it at as a mignonette, maybe with some shallots and champagne vinegar, or bird's eye chiles and yuzu juice.  Either way, this is certainly not the last time I'll be enjoying Korean melon and oysters together.   

 

Oyster & Honeydew Aguachile

2026 has been a year of Mexican marisco dishes for me.  Pescado a la Veracruzana, tostadas de atún, vuelve la vida, caldo de camarón.  Plenty more on this to come in my next blog post, but they've been a recurring theme this year.  It could be from seeing several viral videos like these, or maybe my missing the Bay Area.  Occam's razor would suggest I’m obsessed simply because Mexican seafood preparations are delicious, and therefore deserving of obsession.  Whatever the case may be, they are indeed delightful.

Being top of mind all year, the very first dish I thought of for this project was an oyster & honeydew aguachile.  Again, much more to come on aguachile in that upcoming post, but it's essentially the Sinaloan cousin of ceviche.  Hot peppers like serrano and chiltepín are mixed with cucumber, cilantro, garlic, lime juice and water into a thin, verdant sauce, then poured over raw shrimp or fish and served with crispy tortillas or saltines.  Adding in some honeydew sweetness while maintaining the sauce's green vibrancy, and bringing in a few oysters, seemed like an obvious oysters & melons dish.  I started by curing some Goose Point oysters and Mexican brown shrimp in lime juice to firm up their texture a bit.  I then blended garlic, cucumber, cilantro, honeydew melon, and homegrown jalapeños in lime juice with a little water and passed it through a sieve.



After about 15 minutes of the lime juice cure, it was time to plate.  I laid out the shrimp and oysters, added some cubed honeydew, poured over the aguachile sauce, and garnished with sliced red onion, cilantro, and cucumber.  My favorite Mexican ceviche, aguachile, or coctel accompaniment is saltines, so I had to throw a few on the side.  Overall, it tasted great.  A bright, herbaceous, spicy sauce with toothsome bites of shrimp and oyster and a cooling crunch from the cucumber and red onion.  In terms of a classic aguachile, spot on.  Unfortunately, the honeydew was overpowered by the citrus and spice.  I had put A LOT of honeydew in there, too, but it was still barely noticeable.  I wouldn't have even known it was in there if it weren't for the cubed melon.  Solid 8 out of 10 for a standard aguachile, but I need to go back to the drawing board on the melon pairing.  Perhaps for next year's oyster & gardening post.

Gul Subak Naengmyeon (굴수박냉면) 

Few cultures around the world take their melons as seriously as the Japanese.  They grow luxury, high-end melons that often go for $100 to $200 for a single fruit.  Just this year, a pair of Yubari melons from Hokkaido sold for nearly $40,000 at auction.  As soon as I started this project, I knew I'd be looking to the East for inspiration.  I ended up in South Korea where they make a summer dish called subak naengmyeon.  Buckwheat noodles are cooked, chilled, and tossed in a sweet & spicy watermelon-gochuchang broth.  They're then served cold in a hollowed-out watermelon and topped with sliced cucumber and a jammy, soft-boiled egg.  Perfect for my oysters & melons coup de grâce dish.
  

Yes, that's an Aerogarden in the background,
still trying to sprout some oyster leaf seeds. 

A large oyster, when lightly poached or steamed, can be a great substitute for a boiled egg in many dishes, whether for dietary adjustments or just a fun riff.  I've had some success with it in the past, most notably as a Scotch egg oyster.  I started my Gul Subak Naengmyeon (Oyster & Watermelon Cold Noodles) by boiling Kikkokin buckweat noodles and chilling them in an ice bath, and poaching an XL Goose Point oyster.  At the same time, I hollowed out a baby watermelon half and set it to the side.  I blended the removed melon with rice vinegar, gochujang, and Korean oyster sauce for the noodle dressing.  I also sliced up, purged, and pan-fried some bitter melon to add to the noodles.  I only used a little, so the rest was set aside for a school night stir-fry.  The slightly astringent melon would contrast well with the sweet and spicy noodles.  But really, I just wanted to add more melon, so I could say melon more, even though bitter melon isn't a true melon.

Once all the components were ready, I dressed the noodles and bitter melon and plated them in the baby watermelon half.  I then added the oyster on top and garnished with scallion, sesame seeds, and a few heavy shakes of gochugaru.  The result — quite the showstopper, I don't mind saying.  And the flavor —  🤯.  Slightly chewy, al dente noodles swimming in an all-things-flavor broth.  It was sweet, spicy, savory, refreshing, and tangy in every bite.  The bitter melon brought a great, contrasting crunch, and the oyster on top provided an umami-rich pop.  I'm genuinely surprised we don't see subak naengmyeon on menus in the States more.  It's delicious.  I also have to apologize to my mom.  Growing up, I always watched her salt her watermelon before eating it.  We all looked at her like she was batshit crazy.  But after this dish, I get it.  Watermelon pairs wonderfully with salty and savory, especially in the form of cold noodles with some oysters.  Sorry, mom, you were right all along.    

For a last minute pivot, I was pretty happy with my dishes pairing oysters & melons.  A few tasty bites, some fun learnings, and plenty of leftover melons to enjoy after the project.  No joke, we've been eating melon for breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner the last week or so.  The boy and I went fishing at the Jersey shore recently, and sure enough, he landed a 20 inch keeper.  Summer flounder is delicious, and particularly delicious when served crudo with cantaloupe, watermelon and a spicy gochujang & lime sauce.  I hope you get the chance to eat some peak-season melons and seafood in the last few days of summer, too.

Cheers,
The SF Oyster Nerd

  

Shucked Ceviche

Every summer I try to bridge two of my favorite hobbies - gardening and seafood - into a post.  It started with an oyster shell paved garden path.  Then, it was pairing oysters with farm-fresh eggs from chickens our neighbors raise.  After that, it was turning homegrown peppers into hot sauce for an oyster condiment.  I won't lie, I've found it takes a lot of creative grasping and poetic license to pair seafood and gardening.  Wish I were as clever as The Beatles.  Sure, I could just run through seasonal fish recipes, paired with garden fresh produce.  Lobster BLTs, pan seared halibut over summer succotash, mahi mahi tacos with charred corn salsa, grilled ahi tuna and sesame cucumber salad.  All delicious, but a bit boring.  There's already plenty from the content creating clickbaiters.  "OMG you guys! Run, don't walk, to these amazing salmon recipes! #DeInfluence.  I like some history, exploration, or at the very least, a little whimsy.  Whether successful or not is a different story, but that's usually my aim.  

This year I leaned into the gimmick side.  The kids and I tackled our annual English pea harvest earlier this summer.  I always sow a few different pea varieties around St. Patrick's day, along with other frost tolerant plants like radishes, kale, beets, and lettuce.  This means that come Juneteenth, the garden is overflowing with peas.  My children won't touch a pea on a plate, but somehow love grabbing them right off the vine and enjoying as a snack.  The big harvest has become a bit of a tradition.  One day each year, usually a Saturday or Sunday in late June, we wake up and head to the backyard.  With warm morning dew on our feet and popcorn bowls in hand, we gently pluck each pod from the garden.  Then, we hang out on the deck, sipping coffee and juice, listening to reggae, and process the peas.

When my daughter said "I love shucking peas" this year, it got me thinking - what other foods do we shuck?  Is there a reason that we shuck corn but peel bananas, hull sunflower seeds, and husk coconuts?  I've heard shell and shuck used interchangeably for peas, but shell and shuck for beans can mean entirely different things.  What about peeling shrimp, cracking crabs, and shucking oysters?  I really enjoy weird etymology, bizarre grammar, and strange lexicon.  Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?  What cruel person decided the fear of long words should be "hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia?"  Do you think they named oranges before they named carrots?

According to the Britannica dictionary, and similarly across Cambridge, Merriam-Webster, and others, the most common, contemporary definitions of shuck are.

shuck (n):  

the outer covering of a nut or a plant (such as corn); the shell of an oyster or clam

shuck (v): 

to remove the outer covering of (a plant, such as corn) or the shell of (an oyster)

The true etymology of the word is unknown.  Just ask Gemini, ChatGPT, or any other LLM and you'll get a host of different answers.  That's because these models are programmed to never admit uncertainty, even when sources conflict.  I love a good AI hallucination, but I'm pretty excited to see the AI bubble burst.  I'm by no means a luddite; I use “AI” for data processing and organization at work all the time.  It can do incredible things, and will only get better.  But presently, it's more akin to a search engine on steroids than intelligence.  It's a streamlined parrot of the internet.  It doesn't reason or understand.  Rather, it's being deliberately engineered to seem it can for quick investments and money grabs.  In the worst cases, it's even being fraudulently propped up.  The hype will eventually collapse.

Abraham Fleming's 1577 account
of The Black Shuck

Anyway, while the true origins of shuck are lost to time, there is still reasonable speculation.  The front-runners seem to be Old English's scucca, Low German's schok, and Dutch's schokke, all of which were used in reference to husks, shells, or coverings.  According to The Oxford University Press, the earliest use of shuck with current definitions was as a noun in 1674.  Funny enough, it was describing pea and bean pods, e.g. pea-shucks.  In 1785 we first see shuck as a verb, detailing corn shucking, and we see oyster shucking references in the mid-1800s.  Curiously, the Old English, German, and Dutch words also meant to shake, shrink, terrify or be frightened and shocked.  There's record of shuck, scucca specifically, denoting a devil or demon going back to the 11th century.  References to The Black Shuck, a demon dog said to roam the British coastlines of East Anglia, go back to the 16th century.  Gives a totally different meaning to "Live to Shuck, Shuck to Live" through that lens 😬.  Perhaps shuck around and find out is more appropriate?  Just jokes.  Love my Hog Island homies.      

In American English, shuck gradually evolved to take on other meanings throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.  I'm sure you're familiar with the interjection "shucks," such as "aw shucks," expressing mild embarrassment or disappointment.  Less commonly, there's shucking off clothing or a bad reputation, as in to discard.  It also meant something valueless in the 1800s, like "it wasn't worth a shuck."  More recently there's the practice of shucking hard drives, which is taking an external drive and repurposing it internally.  Modern variations of shuck are also based in African American Vernacular English.  A shuck can be a fraud or scheme, or to shuck can mean to deceive or trick.  Think of shuckin' and jivin', which has its unfortunate foundations with the Black community evading undue attention from the authorities.  Equally unfortunate is the phrase's racially coded appropriation nowadays, and some don't even realize that when they use it.

I'm not a linguist, computer scientist, or race relations expert, so take all of this with a grain of salt.  My research often amounts to shuck.  But with that salt, I can confidently say I'm damn good at making well-seasoned and flavorful seafood preparations.  So while the etymology and history of the word shuck are fun, I wanted to make a dish with my kids celebrating all things shucked.  With our homegrown English peas shucked and on hand, fresh clams, corn, scallops, and oysters all came to mind.  Honestly, I couldn't think of many other shuckables.  No problem, though, because all that sounded like the start of one tasty ceviche.  

My son and I headed to Gentile's Market in Newtown Square.  They've always got the best seasonal produce in stock.  We picked up some ceviche basics - limes, shallots, fresno chiles, green onions, and cilantro.  For the shucking portion, we of course grabbed a few ears of fresh Jersey sweet corn.  Every region of the country has its own celebrated corn basket, and I'm not going to say Jersey's is better than Nebraska, Iowa, or anywhere else.  However, New Jersey is known as the Garden State for a reason, and their produce is top notch.  There are a lot of reasons to hate on New Jersey, but their corn isn't one of them.  Again, just jokes.  Nothing but love for ya, Dirty Jerz.

Next, we headed right across the street to Hill's Quality Seafood to pick up some littleneck clams, scallops, and a single oyster.  I've had and made oyster ceviches before and must admit they're not my favorite.  I like Veracruz's vuelve a la vida, which usually includes oysters.  And the line between ceviches and other Latin American or global raw seafood dishes is a blurry one.  Aguachile, poke, kinilaw, tartare, coctel, tiradito.  An oyster on the half shell is technically just a crudo.  So I do like innumerable raw oyster preparations.  However, shucking and mixing loose oysters into the classic ceviche mix of citrus, chiles, and alliums isn't my cup of tea.  There's something about the oysters' texture, in volume and concentration, swimming around in the leche de tigre that doesn't work for me.  They just don't have the right tooth or body to stand up, and I end up feeling like I'm eating them just for the protein.  That being said, you know I had to incorporate at least one oyster into my shucked ceviche.

We halved the limes, chopped the cilantro, sliced the green onion, and brunoised the shallot and fresno.  By we, I mean the kids got to massacre a few green onions and some cilantro on the side with their plastic knives while I managed the rest.  They did shuck the corn and I sliced some kernels off the cobs.  The diver scallops got diced too.  Next, it was onto the clams.  Same logic as the oysters, raw clams aren't great in ceviche, in my experience.  However, while cooked oysters aren't either as their texture remains rather supple, cooked clams take on a nice, firm texture that holds up well.  We steamed the clams for 10 mins, and once cooled, the kids and I shucked them from their shells with some butter knives.  They absolutely loved this part, and it was toddler safe.  Last, the single Wellfleet oyster.  Ceviches are often finished with crunchy toppings, adding a nice contrast to the bright and acidic base.  And few things are better than a golden brown, crispy fried oyster.  I shucked it, dredged in corn meal, and deep fried in canola oil for a few minutes.  I set it to the side, and with the prep ready to go, it was finally ceviche making time.  

Prep is the laborious part of ceviche.  Fine dices, uniform knife cuts, lots of squeezing citrus.  All very important.  A shoddy chop on onions is no major issue when sautéing, but when eating them basically raw, a millimeter or two can make a big difference.  And bottled lime juice isn't even close to fresh, so never cut any corners here.  The juice is quite literally worth the squeeze.  However, once finished, the rest of ceviche making is just mixing things in a bowl and seasoning.  Quite easy.  Depending on the type of seafood, it can help to marinate it in citrus juice for 15 to 20 minutes before adding the rest of the ingredients.  The acid denatures the proteins of the seafood, both firming and tenderizing while giving it that 'cooked' appearance.  In this instance, the clams were already cooked and I wanted to keep the scallops crudo, so no marination on this one.  The other key step is combining everything in a bowl over ice.  Ceviche should be served ice cold, and this set up helps ensure that.  You can even find special bowls for serving ceviches, tartares, and other dishes that need to be kept chilled. 

Shallot, fresno, cilantro, sweet corn, peas, clams and scallops all came together in the icy bowl with ample amounts of lime juice and kosher salt to taste, then got plated in a hand thrown bowl a friend gifted to us.  I thought of finishing it with some spicy peanuts or pistachios, as you'll occasionally hear of shuckin' both.  However, I decided to stay classic and added some canchas.  They're basically Peruvian corn nuts and are a standard accompaniment to Andean ceviches.  We didn't personally shuck and make them, but they were certainly shucked at some point.  Topped off with some green onion, a little more cilantro, and of course the fried oyster, the ceviche was good to go.  And it tasted great.  Spicy, tart, savory, tangy.  Various levels of sweet ranging from the corn and peas' earthy sweetness to the clams and scallops' oceanic.  The canchas and oyster provided great textural contrast and saltiness.  All spot on with no edits, and a delightful bite on a warm summer's day.  

Wish I could say my kids felt the same.  Since they were integral in the whole production, they were champs and gave it a try.  But I suppose ceviche is more of an acquired taste.  I'm not giving up, though.  They'll be ceviche fiends just like me at some point.  However, I can positively report they're now avid shuckers, and nothing makes me happier than that.  I hope y'all enjoy the rest of your summer and get a few chances to have some shuckin' fun! 

Cheers,

The SF Oyster Nerd

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 its 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:
  

Depending on your browser and / or device, you may need to expand for full legibility
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