The most oysters I've ever had was three dozen, in the Baja coastal town of San Quintin. You told the man wearing rubber pants to the waist how many you wanted, he'd wade into the water with a machete in hand, hacked at what essentially was a rock of bunched-up oysters, then waded back to the shore.

He'd plop that heap of oysters on a wooden table, give you a shucking knife, a bunch of lemons, Salsa Búfalo (not for buffalo wings, it was a brand of smoky hot sauce) and salt crackers.

If they had a blue ribbon that said "I ate like a pig in San Quintin", I am not ashamed to say I would have earned it.