Oyster Lovers

Of which I am most certainly one.

This guy is with the same literary agent as moi. Great book.

http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Oysters ... 506&sr=1-1

Of which I am most certainly one.

This guy is with the same literary agent as moi. Great book.

http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Oysters ... 506&sr=1-1

Chef, I live to damn far from the ocean to get fresh ones. Or my retirement annuity is too damn small, one or the other.

Of which I am most certainly one.

This guy is with the same literary agent as moi. Great book.

http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Oysters ... 506&sr=1-1

Chef, I live to damn far from the ocean to get fresh ones. Or my retirement annuity is too damn small, one or the other.

Seven hours to New Orleans by that automotive thing. I've heard some people fly.

I have this book and really enjoy it.

[Robin Garr]

Chef, I live to damn far from the ocean to get fresh ones.

Just 80 miles, Bob ... Mazzoni's has been racing them to the Derby City from the Gulf on ice via high-speed rail since 1865. UPS makes it a hell of a lot easier. Come on up the highway to the mackerel-snapping side of the grits line, and we'll show you fresh oysters.

Chef, I live to damn far from the ocean to get fresh ones.

Just 80 miles, Bob ... Mazzoni's has been racing them to the Derby City from the Gulf on ice via high-speed rail since 1865. UPS makes it a hell of a lot easier. Come on up the highway to the mackerel-snapping side of the grits line, and we'll show you fresh oysters.

You could both always come to Sydney..

[Robin Garr]

You could both always come to Sydney..

Sydney is shellfish heaven!

It's truly one of the world's great cities, C, and I'm in your debt as one of my best guides.

Deleted by author

Yeah, like I said. Great book.

Virtually all oysters are now farm raised. Jacobsen is eloquent on why oyster farms are ecologically friendly. "Oyster farms are thriving in Virginia, New York and New England. On these aquaculture operations, billions of oysters spend one to three years in metal cages that function as artificial reefs. They filter water. Their shells provide habitat for numerous species. Sport fishermen have learned that striped bass, shad and other species congregate around them.

I have no doubts about oyster farms being ecologically sound.

But,what he meant to say was "virtually all oysters except Gulf oysters" are farm raised.

The overwhelming preponderance of Gulf oysters (my favorites - I like 'em wild) are wild or naturally set. And to be fair to him - he does mention that elsewhere.

I'm not a very big eater myself. But, I'd say on any reasonably good day I could put away four or five dozen of these babies.

I have no doubts about oyster farms being ecologically sound.

But,what he meant to say was "virtually all oysters except Gulf oysters" are farm raised.

The overwhelming preponderance of Gulf oysters (my favorites - I like 'em wild) are wild or naturally set. And to be fair to him - he does mention that elsewhere.

I'm not a very big eater myself. But, I'd say on any reasonably good day I could put away four or five dozen of these babies.

For folks who only want wild oysters, here's his full suggestion:

The Wild One Forget those hatchery-raised wimps, you want a natural-set oyster that survived the one-in-a-million journey from egg to adult.

Olympias are natural-set—and native, of course. Hama Hamas are still grown from natural sets in Hood Canal. Most Apalachicola oysters are completely wild, born and raised in the flats of Apalachicola Bay and harvested with tongs. Gulf oysters are generally wild, as are many Malpeques, Caraquets, Tatamagouches, Bras D’Ors, Martha’s Vineyards, and Chesapeakes. But if the call of the wild is what you’re after, consider harvesting your own. Many state parks, particularly in Washington State, have oyster seasons.

It's probably best to give the entire Op Ed piece:

April 9, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Restoration on the Half Shell
By ROWAN JACOBSEN

Calais, Vt.

THIS year marks 400 years since the founding of the Jamestown colony, a span in which everything about the area has changed, not least the water. When John Smith first encountered the Chesapeake, he was struck by its beauty and bounty. “Heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man’s habitation,” he wrote. The water was clear, fish teemed in its depths, and oysters lay “as thick as stones” on the bottom.

Don’t try to look for those oysters today. They aren’t there. Even if they were, you wouldn’t be able to see them through the brown murk. Those oysters were the linchpin of a now-comatose ecosystem. Not only did they pave the bottom, providing footholds for aquatic plants, but they also formed prodigious “oyster reefs” 20 feet high and miles long that sheltered juvenile fish and crustaceans.

And they performed another vital function. Oysters eat algae. A single adult oyster can filter 50 gallons of water a day, and the uncountable billions that once inhabited the Chesapeake filtered the entire bay every few days. This allowed sunlight to penetrate to the bay bottom so eelgrass and other foundations of the food chain could thrive. By providing these three services — filtration, stabilization and habitation — oysters engineered the ecosystem.

Then they disappeared. Overharvesting was the main culprit, but pollution and disease played roles, too. Annual harvests on the Chesapeake plunged, from over 100 million pounds in 1880 to 20 million in 1960 and less than 250,000 pounds today.

Many East Coasters think that mid-Atlantic waters are supposed to look like brown soup. They’re not. Too many nutrients wash downstream from cities and farms, feeding algae blooms, and there aren’t enough oysters around to eat the algae. When the algae die and decay, they take the oxygen with them, causing the “dead zones” becoming all too common along America’s coasts.

Today, everyone agrees that to restore the estuaries we need to restore the oysters. But how to do it? Government agencies spend about $300 million a year in oyster-restoration programs, with marginal results. Millions of baby oysters are grown in hatcheries and thrown into the Chesapeake every year, but without the structure provided by oyster reefs, they are crunched up by starfish, stingrays and other predators, buried under sediment, or killed by disease. Fewer wild oysters populate the Chesapeake today than when the restoration programs began in the 1990s.

Meanwhile, there is a movement to introduce a Chinese oyster into the bay that may grow faster and be more disease-resistant and pollution-tolerant. But the folly of introducing an alien species to a struggling ecosystem has been shown again and again. Zebra mussels, anyone?

Meanwhile, a real solution exists. Oyster farms are thriving in Virginia, New York and New England. On these aquaculture operations, billions of oysters spend one to three years in metal cages that function as artificial reefs. They filter water. Their shells provide habitat for numerous species. Sport fishermen have learned that striped bass, shad and other species congregate around them.

Aquaculture has a bad name. We picture fish farms with tons of feed being dumped into the water, creating the same algae-promoting conditions as pollution from cities and terrestrial farms. But the situation is reversed with oyster farms, because oysters are little filters. The farms provide far more water-cleaning benefits than all the government programs put together, don’t cost taxpayers a cent, and support coastal economies. They also make better oysters: a farmed oyster is plumper, sweeter and prettier than its wild cousin.

So, have the Chesapeake watermen, who harvest what remains of the wild oyster fishery, embraced aquaculture? Hardly. They have resisted every attempt to privatize bottomland, even as they go out of business. And Maryland has obliged them with a series of regulations effectively hamstringing aquaculture.

This is wrongheaded. The rest of us should consider it our patriotic duty to eat more cultivated oysters. I know; it’s tough. But opting for oysters over wild seafood takes the pressure off marine populations and supports the sustainable production of food along our coasts. It can even help the Chesapeake return to the state of beauty and bounty that stunned John Smith four centuries ago.

The Wild One Forget those hatchery-raised wimps, you want a natural-set oyster that survived the one-in-a-million journey from egg to adult.

Olympias are natural-set—and native, of course. Hama Hamas are still grown from natural sets in Hood Canal. Most Apalachicola oysters are completely wild, born and raised in the flats of Apalachicola Bay and harvested with tongs. Gulf oysters are generally wild, as are many Malpeques, Caraquets, Tatamagouches, Bras D’Ors, Martha’s Vineyards, and Chesapeakes. But if the call of the wild is what you’re after, consider harvesting your own. Many state parks, particularly in Washington State, have oyster seasons.

I have to admit the Olympia is probably my favorite, but I didn't want to bring it up since it's in such dire straits. I had them on my regular menus back in the 70s.

The problem with the Olympia is not so much the pollution (although it doesn't help,) and overfishing (that was certainly done) but rather the Japanese oyster drill which predates on them. There was a time when the Olympia was the only oyster in the Northwest. Then the Japanese oyster was introduced (in the 1930s) to American Pacific coastal areas. The drill came along for the ride. It finds the Olympias easy pickin's.

Wonder what wonderful surprises the Chinese oyster would bring for the Chesapeake?

.

But,what he meant to say was "virtually all oysters except Gulf oysters" are farm raised.

The overwhelming preponderance of Gulf oysters (my favorites - I like 'em wild) are wild or naturally set. And to be fair to him - he does mention that elsewhere.

I'm not a very big eater myself. But, I'd say on any reasonably good day I could put away four or five dozen of these babies.

He considers most oysters safe, especially if from cold waters. In an interview he said:


How likely is it that we'll make ourselves sick by sucking down our raw samples? Not very. In fact, Jacobsen devotes a mere five pages of the book's 287 to seafood safety. According to Jacobsen's research, oysters account for only 10 deaths a year, compared with 5000 stemming from the consumption of poultry, meat and raw veggies.

Plus, all the deadly oysters come from one place: the warm, polluted Gulf of Mexico.

"NonGulf oysters kill no one," Jacobsen claims. We aren't eating any Gulf oysters.

The CDC seems to confirm Jacobsen's claims:

How common is V. vulnificus infection?

V. vulnificus is a rare cause of disease, but it is also underreported. Between 1988 and 2006, CDC received reports of more than 900 V. vulnificus infections from the Gulf Coast states, where most cases occur. Before 2007, there was no national surveillance system for V. vulnificus, but CDC collaborated with the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi to monitor the number of cases of V. vulnificus infection in the Gulf Coast region. In 2007, infections caused by V. vulnificus and other Vibrio species became nationally notifiable.

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How do persons get infected with V. vulnificus?

Persons who are immunocompromised, especially those with chronic liver disease, are at risk for V. vulnificus when they eat raw seafood, particularly oysters. A recent study showed that people with these pre-existing medical conditions were 80 times more likely to develop V. vulnificus bloodstream infections than were healthy people. The bacterium is frequently isolated from oysters and other shellfish in warm coastal waters during the summer months. Since it is naturally found in warm marine waters, people with open wounds can be exposed to V. vulnificus through direct contact with seawater. There is no evidence for person-to-person transmission of V. vulnificus.

Yep, that "r" thing works for Gulf oysters. Er...those non-r months would be those warm ones.

I have some oyster lore in my books - mention some of the problems and some of the diseases. I gave also written a couple of newspaper articles on the topic.

Yep, that "r" thing works for Gulf oysters. Er...those non-r months would be those warm ones.

Maybe. There are a number of reports that recent years have seen unprecedented high ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico. April and October might join the warm ones, if they aren't already with them.

Yep, they are, I used to tell my students to include the months on either side of the 'r" months.

Ameripure has it solved, though.

Ameripure isn't an option for home cooks, though. They sell in restaurant and grocery sizes. Not that I couldn't eat five 12 packs myself.