extreme oyster eating

you all read about my recent sustainability dinner and hopefully checked out the local catch and restaurant charts. so when it came time last friday for my friends and i to choose an after-work spot – we consulted the sources. 

of course, you can’t go wrong with platinum, so we trekked over to the boathouse to be the greenest of green we could be.  

feeling saucy, i decided to partake in some oysters on the half shell. a lot of the time, people ask, “have you eaten blah blah” and i say, “oh probably, i’ll try everything.” so i had assumed that i’d had oysters before (steamed, maybe?) and i’ve certainly had clams, mussels, snails, all the other non-fish seafood, so i got a half dozen oysters and some gin and sat down with my pals.

as soon as those little oysters arrived, i didn’t look too closely and popped one in my mouth. and immediately i thought – WHAT IS THIS HEAVENLY BIVALVE AND WHY HAVE I NOT EATEN A DOZEN A DAY?! ooh they were good. so i ate four more and traded one of my friends for his steamed one (in comparison, i must say steamed was gross and blegh).

i raised my eyebrow at the bartender and asked for a dozen more... they went way too fast. so i ordered another dozen and a handful of lemons. after consuming 30 oysters, an unhealthy amount of lemon, some calamari and a couple of gin cocktails, i felt good. and a little bit like an oyster freak, but no matter.

then i started thinking... how many oysters can one petite-sized person eat before they die? is there mercury in oysters? what if the one that tasted a little squidgy had a crazy disease and i’m about to stop breathing? what is the digestive process like on 30 oysters? will the bartender call the food police if i come back tomorrow and eat 30 more?

the bartender told me i’d live, so i went home, alerted everyone on facebook that i had competed in an oyster-eating contest against myself and won, and then i forgot about my oyster escapade.

now that i’m plainly still alive, i’m worried about other things: i know they are raw, but are they ALIVE? at what point do oysters die? is it when you open them up (meaning the kitchen staff killed them, not me), or do they die when they get in your stomach and meet up with gin and stomach acid – meaning i killed them?!

i can’t research this any more or i’ll run into more diagrams and notes on how i am probably eating oyster poo.

so, #1 can someone let me know in the comments below at what point oysters die and #2, does anyone want to eat some... say, friday at 6?