Oyster's place in history

Korean women gather sea goods in a coastal area in the early 20th century.
/ Courtesy of the Robert Neff Collection

By Robert Neff

While many cherish spring and the warmth it brings, I always view spring with a certain degree of regret for it signals the end of the oyster season.

I prefer my oysters fried, which generates a good deal of kidding from Korean men who assure me that eating raw oysters will increase my male virility. They are convinced even more of the accuracy of this view when I inform them that many Americans share this belief.

Oysters have always been an important part of Korean society and not just as an aphrodisiac. The shells were used to decorate furniture and goods and the pearls were used in burial rites and ceremonies.

The dead often had pearls placed in their mouths — the theory being that if the pearls were large enough they would prevent the bodies from decaying.

Naturally enough, early Westerners in Korea — including the first American Minister to Korea — were very interested in Korean pearls and speculated with them.

In 1885, an American firm based in San Francisco was granted a concession to fish for pearls all along Korea's coast — the only exception being Jeju Island. A schooner, aptly named Pearl, was sent to Korea but after several months the venture was declared a failure and the schooner returned to the United States.

Many of the early Westerners in Korea found Korean oyster flesh much to their liking. Wonsan was well-known for its oysters, which were found in great quantities and were easily harvested.

Soon the reputation of Korean oysters of being gigantic became well-known and was occasionally mentioned in American newspapers.

In 1913, one American visitor to Pyongyang described his encounter with Korean oysters:

"Another day my hostess ordered two ‘small' oysters for dinner. This order caused me to wonder a little, for I knew that there would be seven to dine, besides the servants, but when the oysters arrived all was explained, for one weighed four and a half pounds, and the other five pounds.

"On inquiry I was informed that some of the oysters on the northern side of Korea weigh as much as 10 pounds."

While oysters were found all along Korea's coast, it was Jeju Island that was especially famed for this delicacy.

In 1897, two American missionaries visited the island and noted that the islanders lived on "beef, horse and dog meat, pork, game, fish and pearl oysters."

According to them, "crabs, common oysters and all the different kinds of clams that arc so plentiful on the southern and western coast of Korea are absent in the Quelpart (Jeju) waters.

"Owing to the rocky bottom of the sea very little, if any, net fishing is done and the fish are mostly caught with hooks. For going out into the sea to fish, boats are not employed.

"Instead of them people go out on small rafts made of some ten short logs with a platform built a foot above them to which an oar is fastened.

"Instead of the tiny little frames not more than eight inches long, used by the fisherman on the mainland for fastening the string, the Quelpart fisherman uses regular rods made of bamboo some twelve feet long, and lack of fish, clams, etc., is supplied by the abundance of pearl oysters and seaweed, which are both used on the island and exported.

"The pearl oysters are very large, some measuring 10 inches in diameter, and very fleshy. Unlike other oysters, it has only one shell, which is often used by the Koreans as an ash tray and from which mother of pearl is obtained.

"Covered with this shell as with a roof the oyster lives fastened to a rock. Its meat is considered a luxurious dish and one oyster costs as much as six cents on the island.

"Pearls are but very seldom found in the oysters. For export the oysters are torn out of the shell; the intestine bag cut off, the meat cleaned, dried and strung on thin sticks.

"(Although) white when fresh, the color changes to a dark red, like that of a dried apricot. They can be seen displayed in the native grocery shops in Seoul, flat reddish disks about four inches in diameter fastened by tens with a thin stick stuck (through) them."

In 1901, The Korea Review noted that the recent agreement between Japan and Korea allowing the Japanese to fish around the island had altered the social environment there:

"The women on the island of Quelpart held, until lately, a peculiar position in this matter of fishing. The men stayed at home while the women waded out into the sea and gathered clams and pearl oysters. As the women were always nude there was a strict law that men must stay indoors during the fishing hours.

"So these modern Godivas were the bread winners and, as such, claimed exceptional privileges. It is said that the island of Quelpart bide fair to become a genuine gynecocracy. But it was all changed when Japanese fishermen appeared and began to fish off that island. The women's occupation was gone and the men had to go to work again."

While it may have had an impact, it did not end the Korean divers' trade. In 1915, an American newspaper reported that Korean women were the best swimmers in the world:

"The Korean pearl diving is in their hands. They swim — they don't boat — out to the pearl fisheries of Quelpart, hugging baskets with them. After this swim of half an hour they dive down fifty feet and fetch up queer one shelled pearl oysters as big as babies.

"They dive till their baskets are full — the baskets are corked to keep them afloat — and after three or four hours' work they swim back home with their catch. The big one shelled oysters are valuable as pearl mines and as food too. A half dozen Koreans will sit down to an oyster as gayly as you or I sit down to a broiled lobster."

But eating shellfish had its dangers and Korean nobility were not exempt — even the emperor.

In November 1903, Emperor Gojong broke a tooth after he bit down on a stone that had not been cleaned from the clams he was dining on. One can imagine the horror of the cooks and food tasters when they learned of their sovereign's state.

Fortunately for them, Dr. James Souers, a dentist based in Japan, was in Korea and was promptly sent for. He was able to fashion and fit a new tooth for the emperor who was so pleased that he spared the kitchen staff from banishment. It would be interesting to know how Souers accomplished his task considering an old Korean law prohibited the monarch from being touched with metal objects.

Emperor Gojong was fortunate that he did not suffer the same fate as the English advisor to the Korean Royal Farm, R. Jaffray. Many of the early Westerners in Korea were very concerned about eating Korean food and refrained from eating it — convinced that hygienic conditions in many of the markets were decidedly dangerous.

Jaffray was apparently fond of oysters — even during the summer months — and satisfied his cravings with canned oysters. Unfortunately for him, not all of the canned oysters were safe. Just after midnight on June 21, 1888, Jaffray died after consuming a meal of foreign-canned oysters.

Robert Neff is a historian and columnist of The Korea Times. — ED.