'Tasteful' Smoked Oysters

There’s no way to deny that I knew full well what I was doing when I paid the cashier at Dollarama Plus my $1.13 cents. I had been roaming around the good old dollar store looking for a new strainer when I happened to come across the canned goods aisle. I’m not going to lie—the concept of discount canned goods both excites and deeply concerns me as someone who enjoys living. Yes, Chef Boyardee pasta and Puritan stew at a buck a can is a pretty darn swell thing for lazy gourmets like myself but, other than these two brands, there seems to be an obvious reason as to why these canned goods are $1. Nevertheless, I decided to browse the shelves a little and came across some smoked oysters made by a company called Tasteful. The box is light blue and slightly larger than a pack of cards, and the front is decorated with one of those great suggested serving photos. Apparently the way to eat these things is in an oyster shell and on top of tiny wedges of lemon, cucumber, parsley, tomato, and some sort of white cheese (your choice, I suppose). For some unknown reason I got a craving for oysters just then so I decided to see just what discount shell fish was actually like.

So, what was it like? Well, much to my chagrin, I didn’t have any oyster shells laying around the house so I decided to eat them hobo style (that would be out of the can with a toothpick accompanied by a few pieces of bread). Not being a connoisseur of oysters, I feel comfortable saying that these were pretty decent as far as oysters go; they were pretty tasty and, aside from some wet burps, I did not get horribly ill like I had resigned myself to at the beginning of this experiment. Of course, I’m nearly certain that this is not the sort of product that it would be wise to eat on a daily basis, but as a once in a while thing, or a cheap solution to hors d’oeuvres related problems, they’re not bad.



5.8/10 ----probably not the greatest oysters in the grand scheme of things, but still better than
oysters from the ice-filled trunk of a Cutlass Supreme.



John. E. Ryall