In the food world, there are a number of old wives' tales—cold water boils faster, searing meat "seals" in the juices, food should cool at room temperature—that have what one might call a questionable level of validity (which is another way of saying they're complete bullshit). One that I steadfastly follow, however, is to eat oysters only in months that have an r in their names. It may sound silly, but the reasoning behind avoiding oysters in non-r months—May, June, July, and August—is sound. Aside from the fact that oysters from the East Coast are wont to spawn in the summer (making them more likely to be mushy and unpleasant), the waters that oysters thrive in are also not cold enough then to kill any potentially harmful bacteria that may contaminate the oysters and, in turn, their eaters.
Of course, modern technologies such as refrigeration eliminate a lot of the risk involved in summertime oyster eating, but last summer a larger-than-I'm-comfortable-with number of people fell ill from doing exactly that. Warm waters in Puget Sound were to blame for the "unusual increase in bacterial illness associated with eating raw oysters," and Washington State even issued a recall of its oysters. So I'm getting my fill of the briny bivalves while I still can. A recent surfeit of great seafood shacks in and around New York has made that task a little easier, but I'll nevertheless soon be (reluctantly) putting my oyster binges on hold until the weather starts to cool off again. And love oysters as I might, the reemergence of warm-weather seafood delicacies like soft-shell crabs and wonderful mayonnaise-y lobster rolls will make that transition a lot easier.
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