Praise for oysters straight outta the jar

The famed Portland gourmand James Beard once wrote that oysters are best eaten on the half shell “with nothing to enhance them except lemon, a bit of grated fresh horseradish or a mignonette pepper sauce. If you do not like the natural flavor of oysters and find you must cover them with quantities of red cocktail sauce then perhaps you shouldn't be eating them.”

Cynthia Nims takes a slightly different tack in her latest cookbook, Oysters: Recipes that Bring Home a Taste of the Sea. Nims tells us she can get behind almost any way to get a hesitant eater to give this bivalve a try, even if it's frying up oysters that come out of a jar.

Find her recipe for oyster sliders with Japanese togarashi slaw on the Good Food blog. While you're there, check out a Q&A we did with Seattle Times food writer Bethany Jean Clement about pesticide use in oyster beds in Washington state. Some of the information Clement shares might surprise you.

Music: "Waltz"