The Mexico Diaries: Street oysters

Thursday, December 8, 2011 in Mexico, Sayulita | 3 comments

Street oysters in Sayulita. Photo by David Lansing.

I should try them. I really should. I’m talking about the gigantic oysters, the size of baseball mitts, sold on the streets of Bucerias and Sayulita. They’re plopped on to a slimy table shaded by a rusty umbrella, along with clams as big as starfish.

I know where they come from. I watch the divers every morning from my balcony as they harvest the shellfish right in front of my house. They’ll dive down to the muck of the Bay of Banderas for two or three minutes and come up with a rough, dark oyster, and toss it into the basket suspended in the middle of their rubber inner tubes. Eventually they’ll collect enough to swim in to shore and walk up the beach and sell their harvest to one of the little restaurants close to the beach and that’s where you’ll find those oysters. Fresh, warm, gigantic from the rich effluence that comes from the drain pipes into the bay.

I should try them. I don’t know why I don’t. Maybe it’s because it’s 85 degrees out. And the oysters sit in the hot sun. Without ice. Still, I’m sure they’re fine. Afterall, I see people buying them all the time. And standing right there in the street eating them. And they don’t drop dead. I don’t think. At least, I see them continue to walk down the street. For a little while.

I should try them. Maybe next time.

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3 comments

  1. Allan’s avatar

    Allan on Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 12:22 pm

    OMG. In a version of that parent question: if someone told you to jump off a bridge would you do it? Why not wander off your balcony some morning and go with the other boys and get your own oysters?

    Curiously, the only food I’ve ever harvested were oysters. I had a college friend with a cottage on Malpeque Bay in Prince Edward Island. We would wade into the water up to our knees and pick up oysters. If they weren’t the size of our hands, we would toss them back and pick up others. But we weren’t greedy, we only took enough for dinner.

  2. Angeline’s avatar

    Angeline on Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 2:23 pm

    Eat them and you’ll be making your own big contribution to that rich effluence draining from the pipes out to the bay. You see those people who ate them continue to walk down the street for a little while?….if you keep looking I think you might see them running.
    Vaya con Dios!

  3. geordie’s avatar

    geordie on Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 6:03 am

    Real men eat Street Oysters…. jajaja –

    Actually, I ate some raw oysters with chili and lime from vendors on the beach in Punta Mita, near Bucerias. Let me tell you, they were GOOD. Yes, I realized at the time it could have gone either way, but I wanted to try them. As you say, I want to try them, and I did, and I survived. Was it worth it? Life is too short to not try something you want to try, that’s all I will say.

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