The crunchy bits. It always comes back to the crunchy bits.
Since I was a kid and my mom introduced me to how the crumbs – what she affectionately called “crunchkies” – were the best part about toaster oven pizza, I’ve had a fascination with the little crispy flakes that fall off food. Whether it was chicken tenders – the restaurant down the street made the best ones with crunchy bits formed from dripping buttermilk into the breading mix – or the fragments of potato chips that make you tilt the bag up so it all slides into your mouth, I knew early on that crunchy was for ME. Anything that had a harder consistency than a saltine cracker was usually good enough.
I hated hated hated soggy cereal, which is how I got to know I was different from the other kids – even my own brother and sister – who put cereal in their bowls first, followed by milk. Couldn’t stand that method. Putting milk in the bowl first and then following it up with small amounts of cereal had two effects: 1) I wouldn’t waste portions, as each little scattering of cereal would definitely be eaten, and most importantly, 2) the cereal would stay crunchy due to limited milk exposure.
Oh, yeah. The kids had a field day with me at the table. “He’s so weird! He puts milk in first!” They’d all point and laugh, and I became known as “Milk Boy,” a nickname that carried me all the way up to and including high school. My social life was a hoot – for instance, imagine me walking up to a girl I wanted to ask to a movie, which usually went one of two ways: Either she’d already know about my nickname and want nothing to do with me, or she’d agree to the date, which was always followed by a cancellation because someone hipped her to “Milk Boy.” I mean, this was such a petty thing to be ostracized over, right? Why, after so much time, was wanting crunchy food to stay crunchy such a sticking point with these kids?
At least in college, I could be by myself and not be bothered by anyone who thought this preference was something to make a big fuss over. Or so I thought, because college was even better than I could have ever dreamed. I went to a design college far away from the mouthbreathers, most of whom went to our state school (you know the one – the one that people who attend always make sure to let you know they went there, whether you wanted to know or not), and I was able to experience new things and new crunchy food. I had a roommate named Miguel who introduced me to chicharrones – deep fried pork skins. Some call them “pork rinds” or “pork scratchings”; I saw a really good and funny zombie movie once where they were referred to as “Hog Lumps,” which tickled me to no end.
Best of all, I fell in love with a girl named Saoirse (that’s pronounced “SEAR-sha,” if you’re wondering) who didn’t mind my food proclivities. Oh, I was definitely still into all the crunchy shit, but new worlds were opened up to me at college, which was located in a city well known for its culinary diversity. Every culture has its own textural balances between soft and hard, and I got to try a lot of them. Tempura from Japan, chilli chatak lachha from India, shrimp crackers from China, and so on and so forth. Of course, that’s not all I ate, but those were the snacks and foods that brought me immense joy.
But back to Saoirse for a while. She would sit across from me in the mornings and not say a word about my milk-before-cereal habit. More often than not, she’d be just as quiet as I was, probably because she’d be eyeballs-deep in her chemistry textbook. She needed to stay on top of her class because of her scholarship, so she’d always be studying. For some reason, we had a table we liked to sit at near the windows, and the rising sun would always make her glow. I made sure to let her know, but I don’t know if she really knew how much I loved looking at her in these moments.
Our walks together through campus were lively and full of wonder. She’d find something neat about one of the buildings and stare at it for a while before we continued on. Daytime or night, whether on her way to class or going back to her dorm for the night, she always looked around with those beautiful eyes that seemed to stare right through to my very soul every time. Over time, though, I noticed she was getting distant, because she didn’t seem to stare through me anymore; it was like she was just looking at me, like I was some thing that kept her company, like a child’s doll or a handbag. And then she started looking at other guys with the same intensity that she used to save for me, and I knew I had to do something.
So I gathered my courage to actually talk to her one day. It was winter, and we were all bundled up in sweatshirts and long pants, having ditched the summer’s shorts and t-shirts. She was at our usual table, and I said, “Hey – it’s kinda crazy that we sit together all the time and I don’t know your name. I’m Isaac.” I held out my hand, which she accepted with her own and said, “I was beginning to wonder when you’d say something. I’m Saoirse.” We spent breakfast talking about who we were, where we were from, the usual getting-to-know you kinda thing. Saoirse was from a small coastal town in the east known for its fisheries and the freshness of the food at its restaurants. And when she mentioned fried oysters to me, I knew I had to check it out.
I’ve never had a fried oyster before, being from a rural neighborhood where the ocean was this mythic thing where surfers and bikini-wearing women walked around with surfboards and real tans, none of this fake Snooki-from-“Jersey Shore” kind of shit. To me, it sounded like heaven – the taste of the sea in the soft oyster contrasted with the crunchy breading? Hey, if you’ve read this far, you know that I live for crunch, but I also ate other stuff, too, and this sounded better than anything I’ve ever eaten.
Saoirse and I became friends and hung out a lot; even though she may not have loved me like I loved her, I respected her boundaries and didn’t want to proceed in any direction she didn’t want to. Being her friend was great – just having the privilege to be in her presence made my days brighter. And when Spring Break came up, she asked me if I wanted to go to her hometown to experience the kind of food – especially the crunchy stuff – that it was famous for. After checking with my parents, I was delighted to give her an affirmative answer.
Spring Break rolled around, and we drove about six hours to this tiny little coastal town – and thinking back on it, I always wondered why she never told me the name of the town, only that it was famous for its food. There weren’t even any signs that gave the name of the town, and I must’ve been asleep on the highway when she turned off onto more suburban streets. It wasn’t any place I recognized; I could’ve sworn I saw a shrimp shack that looked like the logo of some frozen fish stick company in my supermarket, but they all probably looked like that. Regardless, I was just eager to see new things, try new food, and hang out with Saoirse.
For the first night at her parents’ house, they cooked fish and rice pilaf. It was unlike any home-cooked or restaurant meal I’d ever had before; the fish was as fresh as it could be and the rice pilaf was better than perfect. Whether it was the seasonings or the fact that it wasn’t mass-produced, I can’t tell, but it was insane. And Saoirse must’ve told them about me, because they brought out a batch of fried oysters before the meal started. She said, “Go ahead – try them.” I popped one in my mouth and was instantly transported into some kind of food Valhalla where trumpets were blaring the sounds of victory. I hadn’t had sex, but I’m pretty sure this was the food equivalent of it. Everything was in perfect harmony; the crackling crunch of the batter, the salt and pepper, and the soft, pleasantly gushy oyster with its briny taste and slippery feel… it was even more perfect than I’d built it up to be.
The next day, we ate breakfast, and I hesitated before sitting down with a box of Frosted Flakes in front of me. Saoirse noticed and said, “It’s all right. Everyone here’s got their own thing.” So I did my thing and received nothing more than an interested, quizzical look from her mother. I explained why I did it, and to my surprise, her mother said, “That makes sense. Crunchy’s good, isn’t it, Harold?” He replied, “Oh, sure. You know I have my own peccadilloes, Marsha.” Then all three of them laughed, and I felt immediately accepted, something I haven’t felt in a long time. After that, she and I went around town, waved to some of her friends, and generally had a good time. There were a few homeless people around, and she treated them with respect, something I’d been taught at an early age as well. She introduced me to them and other people we met as her “friend from college,” to which some nodded and said something like, “Ayuh, another smart’un.” I didn’t know if that was an insult, a compliment, or a friendly jibe, but it didn’t matter. After last night’s oysters, I was dying to try another one.
We stopped in at what Saoirse called the best restaurant in town, and I saw that there were fried oysters on the menu. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance to try more. They had all kinds of fresh fried stuff here – fish, hush puppies, even the french fries were cooked to a delicious crisp (not burnt, but crunchy on the outside and baked potato-soft on the inside). I wanted to try it all, and I made sure to get the oysters first. When they came out, I thought they were differently shaped from Saoirse’s parents’ version, but that may have just been my mind glorifying the experience from last night. But when I tasted them, I knew something was different.
The oysters here were too soft, without the small amount of pleasant chew or the right-out-of-the-sea taste I’d marveled at the night before. Saoirse must’ve seen the look on my face, because she instantly said, “They get their oysters from a different part of the coast than we do.” Overall, the rest of the meal was pleasant, but I couldn’t get the taste differences between last night and this lunch out of my mind. Walking back home, we passed a homeless man with a grey coat and blazing blue eyes – the kind you can’t forget when they’re looking at you for help. I gave him some money to get something to eat, and off he went while we continued on our path home. I asked Saoirse if the homeless problem was bad, and she said, “It used to be terrible, especially after COVID made a bunch of fisheries go under. The ones you see here are the only ones that survived, but the homeless problem seems to be going away. Must be the economy getting better.”
We were only going to be staying two more nights, and on our last full day there, her parents sent us out of the house so they could prepare for the large dinner we were going to have. Saoirse drove us through town and I noticed that the blue-eyed homeless man was still standing his watch, but there was something off about him. I don’t know what – maybe it was the way he was standing, maybe it was how he seemed to be looking at everything and nothing all at once. But he didn’t seem like the kind man we met two days prior. All thoughts of him went out the window as we continued our drive down the coast, with Saoirse wanting to wow me with the coastal surroundings and vistas. Except when we returned to town, I noticed the homeless man was gone.
We came back as dusk was setting to find the table set with lobster, fish, and all kinds of other delicacies. Her parents had really outdone themselves with the effort and the time it must have taken to cook all of this just for themselves, their daughter, and me. But one thing was missing: fried oysters. I was a little downhearted not to be able to experience that again, but the rest of the spread was more than enough to make up for it. And in a show of true hospitality, Saoirse’s mom had made sure to deep fry a bunch of crispy things for me – shrimp, homemade fish nuggets, and clam strips. I’d had the latter before, but it was from a freezer case; these clam strips were utterly fresh and crunchy, just the way I liked them.
We sat for a while talking about the day and where Saoirse and I had gone. As we were talking, there was a knock on the door, which Saoirse’s dad answered. We couldn’t see who it was, but we heard that kind of talk that sounds pointed and hushed, like something bad was happening and they didn’t want others hearing. Eventually, we heard the door slam, and Saoirse’s dad came back into the dining room a little out of breath, saying that there was some trouble in town and that we all needed to stay right where we were while he went and made sure the house was secure.
Alarmed, but with our bellies full, there was really nothing to do but comply while Harold went out. We went to the living room where we relaxed for a while before we heard the kitchen door opening. Marsha went to see what Harold was up to, and Saoirse and I stayed in the living room. After a while, the lovely aroma of fresh oysters being fried came wafting through the living room. Wanting to know how their method differed from the restaurant’s, I went into the kitchen.
The sight of Harold’s bloody face stopped me cold. In his hand was a knife, which he was using to cut up what looked to be a blue eyeball on the chopping block. The homeless man’s head was right next to it, missing the other eye. And Marsha was hovering over the pot on the stove, stirring. I guess I knew how the homeless problem was being handled now. Saoirse burst into the kitchen right behind me, and said, “I wish you didn’t have to be so curious.”
I walked over to the dishrack, pulled a plate from it, and said, “So… are we splitting this four ways?”
Like I said… it always comes back to the crunchy bits. And now, it’s also about the perfect fried oyster.