KitchenDaily is a brand new site for cooking newbies - Discover great recipes for cooking, browse menu ideas for dinner tonight, learn how to cook, get cooking tips or find food inspiration from.

Oysters divide opinion. While some delight in the rigmarole of adding a squeeze of lemon, vinegar or Tabasco before scoffing them down, oyster purists insist there is nothing more delicious than eating them in their unadorned state.

Seafood fans will be in their element at this year's Whitstable Oyster Festival, which celebrates the town's association with the marvellous mollusc.

The festival runs from 24-30 July and boasts a huge range of events, including food fairs, a parade, talks, demonstrations and live music. Native oysters come into season in September, but the town has plenty of rock oysters on offer to sample before then.

July 25 is the feast day of the patron saint of oysters, St James of Compostella. The festival has its roots in Norman times, when the Whitstable fisherman held an annual summer festival during the quieter period of the year.

For those people unacquainted with the oyster's delights, it is best to seek out the freshest local oysters you can - ask the fisherman to recommend the best local restaurant or buy your own.

Ernest Hemingway summed up the appeal of the oyster in A Moveable Feast: "As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans."