I am not sturdy enough for the taste of an oyster
For most of my adult life I’ve not been able to decide which diet I should follow, so I wait for the person I’m seeing to tell me.
Around a month ago I sat next to my partner, opposite a special kind of fortune teller. From a plate of ice, we picked an oyster each and presented it to a softly spoken man with kind, green eyes. I felt vulnerable, like we had unknowingly signed up for couple’s therapy and I was about to unearth ten years of dating and confess to a history of codependence, a limpet-like attachment style. I didn’t share this with the stranger, so here it is for you.
Looking at my oyster, I thought about the evening I spent de-shelling langoustines, fingers cut by their pincers, for a pescatarian ex (of sorts) in a bid to recreate a Valentine’s Day dish of lobster mac and cheese shared with my previous partner. I couldn’t find a lobster which hadn’t been inhumanely farmed, so I resorted to langoustines from the local fishmongers. So early on in the relationship (if that’s what it was? Five years on, I’m still not sure), I should’ve identified the uneven labour involved in the making of the langoustine mac and cheese as a warning. His laugh booming across the tenement flat, my fingers smelling of fish, the roux sauce thickening too quickly on the stove. He surfaced when it was ready.
I thought about how me and my ex before that blissfully bought a £5 frozen lobster from Iceland and lovingly named it Ross and then inelegantly de-shelled it as student lovers, let loose in the kitchen with grown-up ingredients. I thought about the time I convinced that very partner to eat a handcrafted prawn gyoza on the very day he vehemently decided on becoming a vegetarian, and how I felt a weird resentment at his moral upper ground. Shortly after, I came round, and converted back to vegetarianism.
I thought about my ten proud years of following a vegetarian diet (from 8 years old, like Lisa Simpson) before the first person I fell in love with converted me to carnivorism. Some Saturday mornings we’d eat Dominoes pizzas lazily in his single bed, the oil dripping from unidentifiable meat toppings onto the covers. I didn’t like the taste nor the feeling of grease around my lips but didn’t ever think to question the ritual.
I thought about the string of partners I chose to help me grow up, and the meals we shared and prepared together. The first handful, special and stewing with excitement and sexual anticipation. Meals made to impress, widening our circles of friends once we’d discovered everything that could possibly be found out about each other. The meals we fought over, or sat despondently across the table for, waiting for the final mouthful, wondering if it would be our last.
For most of my adult life I’ve not been able to decide which diet I should follow, so I wait for the person I’m seeing to tell me whether I need the protein or whether I can survive without it.
The man who sat next to me at the table across from the fortune teller doesn’t tell me what food groups I should or shouldn’t eat. I squeezed his leg in silent agreement of the intensity of the oyster reading, stealing glances at his tightened jaw, hoping it wasn’t too much for him. Tracing the lines and crevices of our chosen oysters, our fortune teller sung to us in Scots, then spoke in metaphors about our pasts, presents and futures. We occasionally chimed in with the refrain “that’s so true” then reverted to silent, nervous nodding.
We could only open one oyster, so my partner generously put mine forward - that’s just how he is. Stubborn to open, silky and pink on the inside. “Would you like to taste your oyster?”, the fortune teller asked. Although we only prepare and eat vegetarian meals at home together, I knew I wouldn’t be judged by my partner if I said yes or no. But I declined because I am not sturdy enough for the taste of an oyster. I experienced one before and it drowned my throat in salt, bursting on my tongue with an uncomfortable assortment of grit and liquid. Instead, I offered it to the fortune teller, who gladly took it in one elegant gulp.
At the time I lapped up what the fortune teller told me, collecting slight signs of fate, but because it was typically generic, I can’t remember anything he said. All I know is that there will be no need to recreate the lobster mac and cheese in our future together.
This deeply unique and moving experience was part of an art performance by Cooking Sections at Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.