The amount of seafood, and the quality of it, that is consumed in New Orleans is staggering. In particular, the volume of certain shellfish—crabs, crawfish, shrimp and oysters, in particular—that is served in restaurants each week is enormous. Out of all the shellfish produced in our waters, the oyster is my personal favorite. Perhaps this is for no other reason than that the oyster tends to be more time-consuming to open, and the work involved causes one to appreciate them even more.

Oyst...