Today I have been asked by my friend: do you like oysters? It made me smile as I recalled a situation taking place many years ago when I would have categorically answered such a question – Of course not, I am not a snob!
To explain such a strange reaction I need to go back many years to the time when I lived in Paris. This was the first foreign place I lived in after moving from Warsaw to the West. My readers may not know that I was brought up in communistic Poland not being aware of the limitations being exposed over Poles by the regime . I was happy in Poland, you may say, I did not know any better. And I did not. But this is a different story. This one is about oysters.
I despised snobbishness since I can remember. Sometimes I think I am a snob about not being snobbish. One of friends of my, at the time, husband was a sophisticated, elegant, worldly girl and I decided that she was a snob by my standards. Now when I look at the situation I think that I was just silly and felt inadequate so I had to compensate it somehow by looking down at Charlotte’s (even the name seemed pretentious to me) worldly manners. One autumn she came to visit us in Paris and we went to a coffee place in the Latin Quarter. It was a simple Parisian place but Charlotte knew that they may serve oysters at this time of the year. She asked and got a confirming answer so oysters were ordered. Oh how I was disapproving!! How snobbish can one get?? Oysters?? Ha! I am not sure where I got the idea that to eat oysters is snobbish or exclusive. Maybe it was one of the communistic, egalitarian ideas which rubbed off on me?
Anyhow the oysters were served and they smelled divine while they were shucked at the table. This is the French way; at least it was at that time.Suddenly the air in the coffee place full of cigarette smoke started to smell of sea, freshness, saltiness and a hint of lemon.
Charlotte was really a nice person, it was me, pehaps, who was not nice towards her. She generously offered me one to try. I still remember the inner fight : it is soooo snobbish to eat that, but it smells soooo good!! I was fighting with my old convictions for a while but I am glad that my silliness was won by the divine smell of oysters which from then on became one of my absolutely favourite foods. Fresh oysters, not cooked in any silly way some consider elegant. Me snobbish this time??? But I really think that fresh oysters are the best, especially the Sydney Rock ones.
Thank you Charlotte for the introduction to the wonderful food and a great lesson of appreciation of smells and taste of sea captured in oysters. They won over my silliness and sense of insecurity.
My son and I love oysters. I developed a taste for it when I was marketing some accessories to the fisher folk all over the world and passed it on to my son. While I have now become more or less a vegetarian, he has not and goes off to a sea food specialty restaurant to eat it. In India, it is considered snobbish to have them!
ReplyDeleteBeing snobbish about snobbery is a nice way of putting the idea across. I call it reverse snobbery, but will change henceforth.
Hi Ramana,
DeleteSo nice that you read my blog. I have been reading yours as well even if I did not post any comments. I liked the one about the first kiss very much, the poem and the film. Completely different atmosphere to the western one, but it somehow seemed familiar and resonated with me.
When I lived in Germany I had Indian friends, we were rather close. Two couples socilising as we all lived in a foreign country. I realised then that to my surprise there were similarities between Indian people and Polish. And now living in Australia my observations are that Chinese also have some family ways similar to Polish. Strange.
In Poland it is also snobbish to eat oysters, hence my reaction many years ago.
Best regards
Anna
Hey now both, enough on snobbishness and oysters. Mind you, I could tell some very snobby stories on the matter!
DeletePlease do tell.
Delete