CBC TV’s weather presenter and meteorologist extraordinaire, Claire Martin, was bang on the money when she predicted months ago that this would be the summer that never was. But if you’re looking for ways to simulate that summer feeling, a rambling road trip through seafood heaven will do the trick.
One of the most beautiful drives on the Northwest coast — aside from the Sea to Sky Highway, naturally — starts with the languid Chuckanut Drive, which meanders its way south from Bellingham, Washington. By sticking to the picture-postcard county roads, you can weave your way south through Washington state all the way down to the Oregon coast, winding through charming coastal ports and villages with names like Bayview and Grays Harbour. There you’ll find oyster shells piled high into modern-day middens the size of Village Square.
Oysters in the American Northwest pretty much share the fate of
those on the B.C. coast. While both areas were once home to a small native
oyster (
Ostrea lurida) —
also
known as the Olympia oyster or Olys for short —
the giant Pacific oyster
(Crassostrea
gigas)
was brought over from Japan in the
early 1900s to seed commercial oyster beds and has pretty much taken over.
“Giant Pacific oyster” isn’t your basic toss-off of a name. We
once watched a fellow decked out in gumboots and Gore-Tex dig out monsters that
were a foot long and more at Birch Bay. This beautiful little bay, tucked just
south of the 49th parallel and Blaine, Washington, was where Captain George
Vancouver first anchored his mother ships before venturing off in smaller boats
to explore the coast around what is now Vancouver, and beyond.
We can only assume that he was adventuresome enough,
sophisticated enough or hungry enough to try the native Olys. If so, and were
he alive today, he would no doubt tell you what most oyster aficionados do
— that the native oyster is far superior in flavour compared to its larger
and less fussy neighbour, which has multiplied beyond commercial beds due to
its ability to thrive in waters too silty, too polluted or otherwise less
suited to the poor little delicate
Ostrea lurida
.
Not that it matters that much anyway, at least in today’s U.S.
Northwest. Unlike the oysters you can enjoy at places like Bearfoot Bistro or
Araxi, the only ones we found, in I don’t know how many restaurants
specializing in seafood that we tried along the Washington/Oregon coast, were
breaded and deep-fried and served up with your choice of cocktail or tartar
sauce. Nicely done for deep fry, but the novelty wears off partway through your
first try.
Mind you, if you just want to buy your own and bring them home
to enjoy raw, poached, sauced, smoked, Rockefeller-style or however you prefer
them, you’ll not suffer from a shortage of supply. A number of good sources
— meaning good in quality and price — can be found along the Hood
Canal.
Despite its name, bequeathed by our friend Captain Vancouver to
honour British Admiral Lord Hood, it’s really a beautiful, natural blue-green
fjord, not a man-made canal, that bears south and west out of Puget Sound,
where Vancouver first sailed in May 1792, about a month after he was up in the
Birch Bay area. When you follow along the “canal’s” northwest flank on Highway
101, you’ll pass all sorts of oyster houses and retailers for all sorts of
oysters, including the delicious Hamma Hammas.
Further west and south, at Grays Harbor, on the Long Beach
peninsula and in Willapa Bay, you’ll find more oyster farms, oyster stores and
ubiquitous packets of oyster crackers served with your (clam) chowder.
Washington is the king of oysters in the Pacific Northwest,
accounting for about 75 per cent, but B.C. is no shirker either, producing
about 13 million pounds a year. Nor is Oregon, and if you continue on south on
101, crossing the great gaping mouth of the Columbia River that yawns seven
miles wide at Astoria, and on down the coast, especially to Tillamook, Yaquina
and Coos bays — the former as famous for its cheese and ice cream as it
is for its oyster farms — you’ll find many more oysters for the asking.
You’ll also have a great road trip.
If you keep your eyes peeled on the Washington side of the Columbia near Chinook before you mount the great bridge you’ll see the buoys marking the oyster beds the Chinook people keep there.
As for those big piles of oyster shells along the way, they most likely end up in your garden or at your local organic farm. Containing about one-third calcium and other nutrients, oyster shell lime also raises the pH balance in soil, making it a nice natural additive and soil conditioner.
THE PICK OF THE CROP
Even when they’re the same species, the flavour of oysters
really varies depending on where they’re from.
Oysters are filter feeders and siphon up to 25 gallons of water
a day through their system. The flavour of their meat is a result of the trace
minerals — especially the salt — that’s found in the water. Because
their flavour varies according to where they’re grown, they’re named as such,
ergo Fanny Bays (from Vancouver Island) and the above Hamma Hammas, from Hamma
Hamma.
This filtering action also makes oysters a great sustainable
choice when it comes to seafood, at least the giant Pacifics that have been
farmed in the suspension system (check out www.seachoice.org). They actually
can improve oceanic waters by filtering out nutrients and organic biomass and
converting it into tasty oyster meat.
Freshness is key to picking out good oysters. If they’re stinky
at all just pass; you should only smell fresh mineral, mossy/grassy, and/or
sea-like aromas.
Another word of warning from Oregon’s Pacific Seafood Group:
Pacific oysters will convert 80 per cent of their body weight into sperm and
eggs, compared to 40 per cent in Eastern oysters, when they spawn in late
spring and summer, hence the adage: Don't eat oysters in months without an “r”
in their name. As the meat from spawning oysters is milky and soft, farmers
won’t harvest them when they’re spawning.
Also, if you’re buying live oysters, look out for broken
shells, dry meat or dead oysters whose shells won’t close tightly or don't
close when you tap on them. Otherwise, get going and get eating. You’ll be
helping our sick ocean and, don’t forget, people as far back as the ancient
Egyptians turned to oysters for a good time before there was Viagra. How
summery is that?
Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who
would flee the room whenever her dad opened a tin of smoked oysters.
