Shell Shucked on Salem Street

Mercato Del Mare (or the North End Fish Market) is a small fish shop tucked into a side street near Government Centre where, on Saturday of every week, the man on the street can learn how to brutally extract the fleshy goodness from a freshly caught oyster. For 75 cents an oyster and no extra charge anyone is free to join an oyster shucking class where a trained professional will talk you through, in thick Bostonese, the mechanics of knifing the oyster out of its shell.

Oysters are considered a delicacy the world over and Boston is lucky enough to be surrounded by seas rich with these delectable crustaceans. Throughout the shucking experience the guide talks the group through the various different types of oyster, how they are harvested and eventually end up on our table, what types of sauces or spices to cover your catch in… and various other pearls of wisdom.

Last Saturday there was a huge turnout and the groups were varied and interesting; many came to try their hand at shucking but stayed for the fresh fish on sale or the reasonably priced made to order sushi. We got talking to Emily from Ireland and Alfonzo from Mexico who, far from having shucked before, had hardly eaten an oyster before in their lives – though they both seemed pleasantly surprised.

Oysters aren’t for everyone; in fact on paper the oyster doesn’t look all that appealing whatsoever. The oyster has an almost overpoweringly briny taste with a bit of a fishy hint, the texture is both slimy and rubbery, it looks like something that could come out an unhealthy nose mid-February and to top it all off you don’t eat it, you tip your head back and let it slide down your throat. Though despite all these slightly negative attributes the oyster has found its slippery way into the hearts and minds of the culinary elite – and for that alone one must tip his hat to the oyster.

In Mercato del Mare blades are flashing and brine is flying as Emily and Alfonzo begin splitting shells. The cries of the experienced guide can be heard telling them to “dig the knife into the hinge, THE HINGE!” and “you’d wanna get the grit outta that thing before ya eat it” – everyone seems to be having a fantastic time of it.

Despite the ominous sounding taste, texture and appearance of the oyster you’ll never know what you think until you try one, and if you’re already a fan then these amazingly fresh and reasonably priced offerings can’t be missed. All this teamed with the action of wrestling the oyster from its shell with your own two hands has all the makings of a great afternoon out.   

Pop Quiz, Hot Shot

Another part of the National Geographic's homepage that endears me to the website is the pop quiz window; this is a, hitherto undiscovered by me, gem of interactivity available free of charge. Essentially what it does is fire a barrage of multiple choice questions at the willing participant and then submit their answers to be compared to other, better people's results - as is the case with myself who got a paltry 11 correct out of 25.

 It is, of course, all in good fun. The trivia is varied and fascinating, ranging from such subjects as South Africa's seal colonies to the Earth weight of an astronaut's spacesuit, and a new quiz is available every few weeks. The beauty this quiz featuring on Nat Geo's website is that each answer, whether correct or humiliatingly wrong, leads to a hyperlink that will whisk you away to a series of articles, videos and pictures that will tell you all about the subject - so that you will never again be subjected to the humiliation of not knowing that the way to tell the difference between a wasp and a bee is to examine the thickness of their waists.

  So it's yet more interactivity on the part of the Nat Geo website. The promise of beautiful pictures and silken prose draw the browser to the website, but it is the clever little touches such as this quiz that kept me glued to the site and had me exploring (without even noticing it) the vast depths of information it has to offer.   

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

It seems that the enterprising people at Nat Geo have taken a leaf out of Red Bull's ingenious book and turned themselves into an adventure sponsoring machine. In the manner of Red Bull's Stratos adventure in which Felix Baumgernater will leap out of a capsule a dozen or so miles above the earth's surface; Nat Geo is planning to send a Hollywood movie director the other way - this time to the bottom of the sea... exciting stuff.

National Geographic's Deepsea Challenge is basically sending a man by the name of James Cameron (who's taken a few days off from his burgeoning directorial career) to the hitherto only once before explored depths of the Marinas Trench. This mirrors Red Bull's ingenious publicity stunt in many ways, most notably the fact that both present day missions had been carried out only once before in the 1960's.

 

Nat Geo's efforts to study the darkest depths of the ocean is of course a fantastic step in furthering scientific knowledge and helping quell humanity's insatiable thirst for knowledge... buuuut it is also a fantastic way of generating traffic for the website. If one is to take a leaf (or in this case the bones of a chapter) out of someone's book it may as well be Red Bull's. They have managed to transfer themselves from purveyor of slightly toxic canned drinks into one of the foremost international sports/adventure/lifestyle brands in a matter of only a few years.

      

A Photo a Day...

In light of our class this week focusing on the development of our photography skills, (I'm going to stop exposing you to these dodgy jokes now... ahem) I want to take a brief look at the National Geographic website's photography section, most notably the site's 'how to' subsection. This is a fantastic resource for burgeoning photographers as it lets the lay man in on the tricks of the trade, at least according to Nat Geo.

 The 'how to' area basically teaches how to make the most of your photographs, not only by altering technicalities but also by making sure you're in the right place at the right time. The advice ranges from well known tricks such as shooting nighttime traffic with a long exposure, to inspired tips such as making sure to shoot a newly rising moon to ensure that it's still a huge orb and not shining too brightly. There is also advice on capturing the best shot on an i-phone, how to make your photos more magical and even how to break the rules... sensibly. It could be said that this adds an educational feather to Nat Geo's interactive cap.

This special techniques 'how to' caught my eye the most but there are a few more handy little aspects to the website's photography section. One thing that I have used myself, and encourage everyone to as well, is the downloadable wallpaper option. Some of the most stunning photography the world has to offer is available free of charge to download in high resolution. The only price a downloader has to pay for this privilege is to bear a National Georaphic logo across the bottom corner of their screen, which I for one believe is a pretty good deal.

For those who want to take these fantastic shots out of the virtual world and into their living room there is of course the art store. Here you can buy high quality prints and have them sent out, the prices are reasonable enough at $17 for a 16x24 unframed print but there is always fancier options for those who like fancy things - for $90 one can purchase a splendid canvas print, or a selection of gilded and non-guided frames for all sorts of money.

There's a lot more to the photography section; shot of the day, best picture of the year - even entire areas devoted to underwater or travel or any other sort of photography you care to mention. This is all fantastic but for me the tips are this section's piece de resistance, it is something of a crash course in photography entirely free of charge... and that's what will keep me coming back.