Despite the various booths selling numerous foods and treats, I decided to bypass the fried shrimp served up by the kids at St. Gabriel’s school and burgers and hot dogs from the Milford Republican Town Committee (In case you were wondering the Democratic Committee stuck to the maritime theme and had fried clams and oysters) and headed straight to the Pond Point Wines and Spirits tent for the 1st annual Wine and Oyster Tasting. For $40 I feasted on freshly shucked oysters, appetizers from local restaurants and some hefty pours of wine from Charlie, the pony-tailed ex-computer programmer-turned-liquor store owner/wine connoisseur. Although I sampled everything the tent had to offer, I made it a point to understand the subtle differences between the various oysters offered. Each was sampled without condiments and in order to cleanse my palate I made sure to wash away each distinct oyster taste with some of Charlie’s wine.
From left to right, my first plate consisted of Oysters from Nova Scotia, Milford, Connecticut and Lottsburg, Virginia. The only way I could visibly tell the difference between the brack water creatures was to label them in my notebook. Despite these guys looking pretty similar they all have very distinct flavors. The Nova Scotias were incredibly light and not salty at all. The Milfords were the exact opposite, meaty and dense while the goods from Virginia tasted almost like nothing at all, very neutral and clean, probably due to the private waters where they are cultivated. It shouldn’t have come as such a surprise to me, but after sampling all seven different varieties, it was easy to see how oysters from certain waters are prized for their taste. My oyster epiphany reminds me of the Emputido festival in Spain where I consecutively sampled chorizo and morcilla from 3 different purveyors and realized just how complex one type of food can be from its neighbor.
Plate two (from left to right) consisted of oysters from Norwalk, Connecticut, some from the frigid waters of Bath, Maine and little ones from Noank, Connecticut. Around the time of round two I began chatting with a few of the shuckers, asking about the difference in oysters and how to shuck.
More importantly, however, I was trying to figure out why these people traveled from festival to festival shucking for the hungry masses. After chatting with a few I met a fellow named Jason. He was an admirable fellow, born in Rhode Island and living in Canada. Jason had a pretty interesting story; he was washing dishes in a restaurant when one of the cooks asked if he could shuck. Growing up in a coastal RI town he had a penchant for the mollusks and began prepping the oyster for his restaurant. Soon after he realized how passionate people were about oysters and began working with the distributors. He got involved with the company and worked his way up, shucking oysters the whole time. Somewhere along the line he got into competitive shucking (the competition portion of the Milford was held on Saturday, so I wasn’t able to attend) and became the national Canadian champion.
I listened to his interesting story as I thoughtfully devoured my plate of oysters. The Norwalks were incredibly salty globs of oysters. The third Connecticut offering from Noank was much more balanced, with the salinity easing into an almost sweet aftertaste. The oysters from Maine, however, were phenomenal! I knew I was in for something special when the program described the York, Maine delectables as filled with “brine and brothy umami richness.” Besides that statement making me want to write food descriptions as a living, it was spot on; the oysters were sweet and salty at the same time, with a dense liquor that made them go down easy.
After trying a few more of the Maine oysters (pictured again on the right) I tried the final variety offered, this one coming in from Jason’s home state of Rhode Island (picture on the left). These critters were probably the second best I sampled, slender and slippery with an almost oily finish. The salinity was strong without overpowering and the oysters themselves with thin, almost as if someone flattened them within their shells. As I was slurping a few down I began talking with a heavy-accented Bostonian named Anton who gave me the low down about the interesting world of competitive shucking.
Anton was a wiry fellow. He had a slight stoop that I assume he attained from hours of shucking and wore high shorts with a pair of heavy, well-worn work boots. His words came out quick and saturated with an accent that sounded like mix of Canadian and Bostonian, but I did my best to understand. He told me about a large, bearded man who was the second best shucker in the United States. I had the pleasure of trying one of these man’s oysters and immediately noticed something—he shucked upside down. I asked Anton about this and he began to explain shucking technique to me. The majority of shuckers uses a long, dull knife and inserts the blade at the base of the shell’s hinge. After cracking the sucker open, they remove the flat top shell, cut the connecting muscle from the body and serve the oyster in the curved, bowl shell. This method allows the oyster to sit in a small pool of its delicious liquid, adding another flavor element to the oyster. After Anton took me over to watch the U.S champion shuck, he pointed out the small tipped knife he was inserting in the front lip of the oyster. After breaking the shell open, the champ cut the muscles and discarded the bowl part of the shell, presenting a flat oyster that filled the small top shell.
I could hear the passion in Anton words as he described this Baltimore style of schucking. He began going into knife composition and how the North American champion—unfortunately, he was not at this festival—has a custom made knife that forms to his fingers. Anton seemed to break out in a sweat as he went on describing the various festivals and how he saw the champion shuck twenty-four oysters in a minute and one second. I listened to him speak as I devoured another plate of oysters.
A few hours into the festival, the rain started pouring and the tasting tent was jam-packed. The food was devoured and the wines were all drunk. The flow of oysters never ceased, but after many plates of “research” it was time for me to leave. I thanked Anton and Jason and said goodbye to Charlie. Anton reminded me of several of the festivals coming up in the fall and I made my way out of the tent and into the rain. As I passed the oyster tent on the way to the car, I noticed a few grizzled looking old men comparing shucking styles and critiquing each other’s form.
The competition had begun.
Some Oyster Facts (Courtesy of the Milford Oyster Festival FAQ sheet and Jeffery Steingarten’s article, “Hot Dog”)
• Oysters have been on the Earth for 500 million years.
• American Oysters live in brackish waters, that is, areas where salt and fresh water mix.
• Baby oysters are free-swimming microscopic organisms known as planktons.
• An oyster’s shell is made of calcium carbonate. The plankton create their shells by taking chemicals from the sea water.
• The oldest part of the shell is the point or beak.
• Oysters can live up to twenty years but most live to about six.
• The oysters we eat are usually 3-6 years old. Cultivated oysters are younger and wild ones are older.
• Raw clams, oysters and mussels account for 85% of all seafood borne illness. However, the bulk of this threat is due to mollusks taken from March to October in the Gulf of Mexico. Broken down, only one in every two thousand servings of raw mollusks will get someone sick.
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