Writer’s Block from May 29, 2010:

What is the most disgusting food you have ever eaten? What made it so gross?

I have indeed eaten steamed oysters out of the shell. Not only that, I was (mostly) sober when I did it. But I will not accept any responsibility for the idea.

It was at a holiday party in 1997. Although it wasn’t formally company-sponsored event — and we paid for it ourselves — it was essentially a company party. It was also on a weeknight and I was driving home, so after two drinks I switched to water. There were several people there who’d made similar decisions…but there were also several people there who hadn’t.

I was getting a great deal of amusement from watching and interacting with those who hadn’t made the same decision I did. At one point, I was wandering around the groups of people, came around to the oyster steamer, peered in and then looked at the ones that had already finished. The steamed oysters looked like globs of sticky snot floating in the more runny kind, and I wondered aloud why oysters were considered such a delicacy.

A past supervisor (who’d had about as much as I had) was standing there and his supervisor (who’d had more) wandered up while we were talking. At that point, my past supervisor informed his supervisor that I was going to eat an oyster.

I probably could’ve gotten out of it but since it was an obvious challenge, I ate two. Steamed. Right out of the shell.

They tasted about what I thought they looked like.

That said, it wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be since I was able to eat them quickly. But it’s not an experience I would actively seek to repeat. Winning the challenge was worth it, though.