Several years ago, in Seattle, in the course of one evening, I ate 60 oysters. I was working on a story for a magazine on ales and oysters — which ones tasted best with which ones (porters and stouts came out well) — so I visited five of the city’s brewpubs and ate a dozen of the mollusks at each. I was certain that, statistically alone, I would sicken overnight, but that did not happen.