Saving Doggerland, frying oysters, and the death of shame
Issue #1: With Stefan Stern and Willie Athill
A couple of weekends ago, during that vaguely melancholic Twixmas period, I found myself reflecting on 2024. On the whole, it was a great year: I tried fun new things, took risks and leaps of faith and scrolled a bit less than I did in 2023, which I’m counting as a big win. But one thing that I realised has held me back is shame, or a version of shame that I think limits many of us: the fear of embarrassment.
There is a bit of a list of things I didn’t do last year for fear of embarrassment: eating dinner alone in a nice restaurant I happened to walk past (I got a takeaway instead); painting in the corner of a quiet cafe (I finished my coffee, scrolled Instagram for a minute and left); posting my Spotify wrapped when it turned out I had, in fact, listened to that one Sabrina Carpenter song too much (I continue to keep this one under wraps, as it were), to name a few.
In the moment, I let the mere concept of shame stop me from enjoying a nice thing, but I look back and realise how silly that sounds, as if painting in public would make me some sort of pariah.
In today’s Boundless newsletter (the first from our new revamped Boundless*), Stefan Stern, the Financial Times writer, notes that while some people probably won’t feel any shame at all this year, (Mr Musk for instance), for others it continues to be an entirely unwarranted burden. Kicking back is my resolution for 2025. Let this be the year we silence that little voice that tells us to be ashamed of ourselves, whether it's silly things like having lunch alone or big things like embracing the very essence of who we are. Feeling embarrassed over the things we enjoy is out. Cafes, here I come, with brushes in hand.
Sadia Nowshin
Junior Editor
*PS: We mentioned it earlier this week but in case you missed it, we’re on Substack now! As a thanks for being a valued and helpful feedback group these last couple of months, we’ve given you all three months free access to Boundless — you should have had an email already inviting you to claim that gift but if not, drop me a line.
🖊️ Getting away with it all
Stefan Stern wonders if we've lost the ability to feel shame
It was the summer of 1954. America was still troubled by the fear of the 'Red peril' – supposed communists at the heart of the establishment. Senator Joe McCarthy was leading a campaign this imaginary enemy. And McCarthyism, while not quite as powerful as it had been, was still a force to be reckoned with.
At a hearing over the alleged communist penetration of the US Army, McCarthy attacked a young lawyer, called Fred Fisher, for having held leftist sympathies while a student at Harvard. Fisher wasn’t actually present but the young lawyer’s boss, Joseph Welch, the army’s chief legal representative, had clearly had enough. He slapped down McCarthy and silenced the firebrand politician with a solemn (and now famous) condemnation: 'You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?'
The senator tried to make himself heard but the session ended with a spontaneous round of applause from those watching. Welch had given voice to a feeling that was widespread but until that point not powerfully expressed. McCarthy had finally been shamed, and McCarthyism as a movement never recovered. By the end of the year his Senator Joe’s career was effectively over. He died three years later, in 1957, aged just 48.
🦪 The lost fish of Doggerland
Oyster farmer Willie Athill on his plans to repopulate a sea gasping for breath
January has blown in on a cold north wind this week, bringing on its wings the last of woodcock, their beady black eyes in our hedgerows, and feeding on the worms at night.
I was out on Blakeney Point yesterday morning at daybreak, the angry sea separated a beautiful spit of high sand dunes and marram grass. A thousand grey seals howled, and snarled as they protected their pups amongst the dunes where I sat. Waders in their thousands screamed at a peregrine that patrolled the foreshore. Ten thousand geese roosting on the sand lifted before the big tide, then flew inland in squadrons to feed on the sugar beet tops. I was home there.
In the New York Times not long ago there was an article that asked ‘Are shellfish good for you?’ It pointed out that shellfish — specifically bivalves like oysters are full of vitamin B12 zinc, iron and something called Omega 3. They are relatively short lived so aren’t full of mercury, unlike those beautiful bluefin tuna. And the bete noir of the sea, all that micro-plastic, just gets spat out by oysters. Oysters farming and mussel farming are the most sustainable and low impact of all the aquaculture models. Neither of them need to be fed on anchovies, krill, sardines and all the other keystone species that Russian and Chinese trawlers are sucking up, depriving whales of their grub, just to feed the likes of farmed salmon. And oysters, unlike farmed salmon, don’t need antibiotics, nor do they need steroids. Oysters just get on with life, filtering seawater for all the nutrients they need to get fat on. They are little heroes of the ocean deep.
Willie Athill’s Tempura Oysters
This is really simple and if you get it right the batter is light and very crispy, and the oyster is firmed up but very succulent. You can easily do this on a barbecue.
Ingredients
24 No1 Oysters
Fresh sunflower oil — enough to deep fry
50g plain flour
50g cornflower
Good big pinch of sea salt
Good big pinch of black pepper
150ml of ice cold soda water
Ice cubes
6 tbsp dark soy sauce
6 tbsp of water
4 limes
Method
Make a dipping sauce in a glass jug with an equal measure of soy sauce and water and juice from one of the limes. Get your serving bowls ready.
Shuck the oysters into a colander so you get rid of the liquor. (Shuck them clean so you don’t get any shell in the meat and never, ever wash them in fresh water.) Keep the bottom of the shell for serving.
Get your oil hot but not ridiculously hot. I like about 190C. Use a wide flat highsided pan that you can put several oysters in and they won’t all end up in a pile in the centre of the pan.
Put another flat serving dish with the deep shells from your oysters in the oven to warm up.
Sift the flour, cornflour, pepper and salt into a big glass bowl and mix in the soda water. The batter should be quite thin and see-through, and it doesn’t matter if it has a few lumps in it. It must not be thick — you are not making Yorkshire puddings. If you want, add four ice cubes.
Take one oyster at a time, dip them in the batter and plop them into the boiling oil. Don’t overload the pan. Fry for about a minute until the batter is crisp and starting to get golden. Take the warm shells out of the oven.
Take the oysters out of the oil, let them drip for a second and touch them down on kitchen paper then immediately put them into the warmed oyster shells.
You can keep them warm in the oven as you wait for a second batch but I wouldn’t wait too long.