Competitive Oyster Shucking Is Real, Decadent, And China’s Best Party

"I fell in love with food writing when I learned that to write about food is to write about anything. Food is wrapped up in personal memory and heritage, politics and history. Noelle Mateer’s piece for Deadspin proves why readers would be bereft if food writing were restricted to recipes and graded restaurant reviews. (It would be as sad as if sports writing decided it was better off “sticking to sports.”) This story reeled me in right away with an image of 60 people shucking oysters on the Great Wall of China. How oysters, which filter impurities from the water, came to be served raw in Chi…"