An Epic Meal

The best meal I’ve ever had wasn’t even really a meal, but should be described more as an gastronomical event. I was twelve when my parents took me to the Cross Street Market in Baltimore, Maryland and spent the better part of an afternoon eating some of the freshest seafood and the greasiest french fries available on the East Coast. Cross Street is an open fish market that is famous for its raw oyster bar.
Walking into the market, you are overwhelmed by the amount of fish and meat products display and offered for sale. In one corridor you could pretty much buy anything ranging from calamari, to hot dogs, to fried chicken livers, to fresh fruit, to birthday cakes. The Cross Street Market offers it's visitors the ultimate dining experience. You can grab a solo cup of beer at the bar and walk through the isles, sampling some fork cookies at one vendor, eating some fresh roasted peanuts at another, ordering prime cuts of meat at butcher booth, or taking home some fresh lobsters, clams, or mussels at the shellfish stand.
But the most popular and prized booth at market is, like I said before, the raw oyster bar in the center of the building. This was the site of the most epic meal I have ever had. Imagine this: a twelve year girl is sat down on a stool at a raw bar on a busy Saturday afternoon. All around her are adults, laughing, toasting their beers to one another, and becoming messier and rowdier as they slurp back live, raw, gelatinous oysters on the half shell.
My father and I start off the meal right. I order a large, sugary sweet coca cola. My father orders a plastic cup full of cheap beer and six oysters on the half shell. I had never even seen an oyster, let alone tried one before that afternoon and the experience was not an easy one. A raw oyster is best compared to, using my father's words, "an elephant snot." They are a sickly gray color and have the consistency of a fleshly hacked lugi. I watched in horror as my father grabbed one of the shells, squeezed some lemon juice from a wedge sitting in a bowl on the bar, splashed on a bit of hot sauce and cocktail sauce, put the shell up to his lips, and with a loud slurping noise, suck the fleshy oyster into his mouth and down his throat.
I was disgusted but fearless. Other customers gathered around me and my father as he lifted another oyster and passed it over to me. The chaotic scene at the bar seemed to stop as everyone around us stopped to watch the twelve year old little girl with pig tails in her hair try and slurp an oyster for the first time. I heard one of the bar tenders whisper that he didn't think I could do it so I held my nose, squeezed my eyes shut, and sucked on the shell as hard as I could. The wet, slimy, oyster sat one my tongue, it slid all around inside my mouth and I could feel my gag reflex kicking in. The crowd made a noise, 'she's not gonna do it!' But I finally got the oyster to slide down my throat. I opened my eyes and looked around. Everyone was clapping for me, as if I had just made everyone, all of these strangers so proud. I smiled and my dad beamed with pride. The day did not end there. I further impressed the crowd when after the oysters I ate crab cakes, fried calamari, fried chicken, french fries, a cheeseburger, fried clams, and a bread bowl filled with clam chowder (I must have been going through a growth spurt because my stomach was bottomless!). People were nudging each other and watching me as a finished plate after plate of freshly made food. That afternoon of food was probably the best meal I've ever had and it's an event my family still talks about today.