What a perfect opportunity to discover or rediscover oysters! Love them? Don’t know much about them? Then click here to learn more about the many delightful possibilities of oysters.

Great news for oyster lovers! The “R” months are back, but now you can enjoy fresh oysters 12 months a year, thanks to cultivation and improvements in refrigeration techniques.

The best-known oysters in our part of the country are the caraquet from New Brunswick and the malpeque from Prince Edward Island. The latter are firm and succulent, with a delicious salty tang. This week at your Metro store's fish department, you'll find both standard and choice Prince Edward Island Malpeques. What's the difference? Choice Malpeques are more uniform in size with a more regular shape that makes them easier to shuck. The fish department also carries Beausoleil cocktail sauce to enhance your dining experience.

According to real connoisseurs, the secret to divine tasting oysters is simplicity itself. Enjoy them raw on the half shell with a squeeze of lemon juice, a bit of wine vinegar or a few drops of Tabasco sauce or chilled vodka. They are also excellent poached in their own juice, fried in batter, baked or turned into an ambrosial soup. However they are prepared, these bivalves are popular for their delicate, nutty flavour and briny tang.

And oysters are as good for you as they are good to eat. Bonus! Like most molluscs, oysters are a high-protein, low-calorie, low-fat food. They are also an excellent source of iron—a dozen oysters supplies 60% of the recommended daily intake—and a prime source of zinc—a half-dozen provides five times the recommended daily intake. Naturally salty, oysters also contain phosphorus, copper, iodine and vitamins A, B, C and D. In fact, their healthful, tonic qualities may be responsible for their reputation as an aphrodisiac.

So forget about pearls, the real treasure is the oysters themselves! Go to metro.ca for more information about oysters and fabulous recipe ideas!

Oysters on the Half Shell!
Crackers with Oysters and Foie Gras
Oysters Rockfeller
Oysters Au Gratin