I’m mostly posting a Tasting at.. Cancale because the oyster photo I took is too good not to share, and just looking at it brings back great memories of a trip I took across the northern coast of France last summer. From Calais to Brest and back we travelled in a little red Twingo for a couple of weeks. Two highlights of the trip: a guerilla stay in a caravan park near Mont Saint Michel under the stars sans tent, and a seafood feast at Cancale in Saint Malo, Brittany.

Breakfast in restaurant Twingo after night under the stars at Mont Saint Michel

In French, the saying goes that oysters should be eaten only in months that contain the letter ‘r’. So that means every month is fine except for May, June, July, August. The months of summer. That’s because back in the old days refrigeration was shonky and there was no guarantee that recently caught seafood could be kept fresh enough for eating. I don’t think that sticks these days, especially in Cancale where 25,000 tonnes of oysters are farmed every year and we were right at the source. Being there in July was a blessing. At restaurant Au Pied d’Cheval there were more varieties and choices of oysters than I’ve ever encountered. Good enough for me is that they were amazingly fresh and beautifully shucked.

I’d love to do some research into the state of oyster culture in China, but in the meantime I thought my friend Joanne Sharkey could shed some light on the interest of oysters in Chinese medicine. Joanne is a Chinese medical practitioner in Beijing and Melbourne and author of needles and herbs. She says:

“Oysters are really good for insomnia, restlessness and agitation.”

But other than the flesh of the oyster, it’s more the shell that is of interest in Chinese medicine. Apparently it acts as an “astringent to hold in fluid, commonly used for people who sweat too much”. It is also used for its “function to calm the mind. As a herb the temperature is considered cool {all Chinese herbs are either hot, cold, cool, neutral}, so doesn’t add excess heat to the system.” For me it seemed counterintuitive that according to the Western medicine cliche oysters are an aphrodisiac. Wouldn’t heat be associated with sexual function? Apparently not. Jo tells me that oysters in fact tonify the kidney and the kidney plays a large role in the function of libido.

Interesting indeed!

Photo at Mont Saint Michel taken by Eric Leleu
Food photos by Lauren Gollasch