Maine on a Half Shell Redux - That Other Local Shellfish

Photo:  J's Oyster - Portland Pier - Portland, Maine

This is a slightly revised and expanded version of a lecture I presented before the New Gloucester (Maine) Historical Society on September 19, 2019.

The oyster is a classical character.
      – John R. Philpots

I am not certain when I ate my first oyster, be it cooked or raw (nude). I was born and raised in the Midwest - mostly in Wisconsin with its dairy farms and breweries. Lots of cows, hay and corn. Plenty of milk, cheese, and beer. You get the picture. We did have the Great Lakes and their bounty, but where I grew up we were hundreds of miles from the closest oyster beds.

This is not to say that oysters did not occasionally pop up on a menu, especially Oysters Rockefeller, or oysters on a half shell (some say "in" a half shell), in some of the fancier restaurants in Milwaukee or Madison, or Chicago - my hometown - whenever we ventured that far. Still, folks in Wisconsin seemed content with a simple Friday night fish fry and all the yellow perch and walleye one could eat. If I did go somewhere fancy to eat on a holiday, or on a special occasion, I was content with a shrimp cocktail, or maybe some pickled herring. I even had snails a couple times and enjoyed them just fine. But oysters. They seldom entered the picture.

I attended college in Florida for most of my undergraduate career. My Midwestern culinary horizons were greatly expanded, including an introduction to other types of delicious seafood not sold in supermarkets or served in restaurants back home. At least not five decades ago. I enjoyed an occasional lobster, although unless it was a special occasion when the offering was a Maine lobster served in a restaurant, it was more than likely a Caribbean spiny lobster harvested from local waters between midsummer and early spring, or South African lobster tails before they became seafood-non-grata to protest the apartheid regime in that country. Although oysters were harvested in Florida, I would not discover them until later.

It was during the year I attended a German university and traveled throughout Europe in the early 1970s when I began trying all sorts of foods I had never tasted before. There were the fermented Vietnamese century eggs and other indigenous and foreign street foods consumed in the back streets of Paris’ Left Bank. Or live snails although they moved so slowly there was some question whether they were still alive when you pt them in your mouth. Herring in aspic was a new discovery as were smoked eel from the Rhine River. The list goes on and on. More importantly, my diet in Europe also included the delicious North Sea flat oysters harvested from the expansive tidal flats along the German, Dutch, and Danish coasts which could be purchased at the daily market in the center of Freiburg where I did most of my marketing. And who could ever forget those wonderful Belon oysters along France’s Brittany coast?

So I finally had a taste for oysters when I returned from Germany to Florida and discovered that the Sunshine State, as well the Gulf of Mexico coastlines of Mississippi and Louisiana, produced some of the finest tasting oysters in North America. Back then oysters grew like weeds along the Gulf coast; most of them still grown wild on contrast to farmed oysters. And best of all, they were relatively inexpensive. The lower salinity levels of the Gulf also protected wild oysters from certain diseases in a way that has not occurred in the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere. My favorite Florida oysters are those from the waters near Apalachicola, on the eastern Panhandle, which is the last place in the United States where, by law, wild oysters are still harvested by tongs from small boats. I still love to visit north Florida and drive over to the Gulf coast at Cedar Key where you can find me slurping down trays of local Pelican Reef (Eastern) oysters on the half shell arrayed over crushed ice . . . with a drop of Tabasco sauce, a dab of horseradish, and a few wedges fresh lemon.

I moved from Florida to Tucson for graduate school in early 1974. Yes, it’s in the Arizona desert and it is not especially known for seafood although there is good seafood to be found not far away, in Southern California, and even closer, in Mexico. Fresh seafood could be found in the better restaurants around town. But no oysters to speak of; at least I never ate them while living out West to my recollection. Being a graduate student on a limited budget, I tended to seek out less expensive fare.

It was probably not until the autumn of 1976, shortly after SallyAnn and I moved from Tucson to Maryland with easy access to the Chesapeake Bay, that I finally got into a regular habit of eating wild oysters harvested by trawl and hand tonging . . . and a raw one to boot. They were at the time plentiful and relatively cheap. I will occasionally eat cooked oysters - roasted or fried - but my default preference is freshly shucked bivalves served on the half shell . . . and yes . . . with a drop of Tabasco sauce and a little dab of horseradish and some freshly cut lemon wedges. That’s all you really need for a feast fit for the gods! I became an official ostreaphile . . . an oyster afficionado.  

While wines have terroirs, oysters are defined by "meroirs" determined by water salinity, temperature, the types of algae present in the water, and seabed characteristics. These all factor into an individual oyster’s distinct flavor. There are only five unique species of oysters in the United States – Pacific, Kumamoto, European Flat or Belon, Olympia, and the common Eastern Oyster from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to the waters of Maine and the Canadian Maritime, including the Chesapeake Bay. The Eastern Oyster – Crassostrea virginica – has many different market names –"Wellfleets" "Blue Points" "Dodge Coves" – depending where they are harvested. They are all the same species yet these oysters differ from state to state, from river to river, and even from cove to cove.

Chesapeake Bay, long considered the "Napa Valley of Oysters," is not a bay at all, but rather a tidal estuary, the largest in the US, where fresh and salt water mix to medium salinity. Its oyster beds were once dense throughout, and the local bivalves flourished in the warm waters along its indented shoreline and in its several tributaries – especially in the Susquehanna, the Potomac, and the Choptank of Maryland, and in Virginia’s James and the Rappahanock rivers. Oyster rocks, or reefs, were so abundant that they presented a hazard to shipping in and out of Baltimore. Chesapeake oysters grew plump and sweet and forty years ago you could buy a bushel and not break the bank. Alas, the local watermen have harvested this apparently inexhaustible resource for over three centuries until today there are virtually no more wild oysters to harvest in the Bay. All the best oysters now come from aquaculture operations in the Virginia tributaries and Maryland is expanding its oyster farming operations. In fact, 95% of all oysters consumed in the world today are farm-raised. And they are no longer cheap or as easy to come by. You can imagine my consternation.

***

To many, perhaps most, Maine is synonymous with lobster; and understandably so. Of course, there is the ubiquitous steamed or boiled Maine lobster which is always easy to find and relatively inexpensive (although not as cheap as it used to be), if you buy it direct from a lobster pound; they can be rather dear, if served in a restaurant. There are also lobster rolls, lobster stew, lobster bisque, lobster salad, lobster mac and cheese. You name it! And who can forget the indigenous soft-shell clams, or "steamers," which are usually quite plentiful and relatively inexpensive during the summer months unless there is an active red tide bloom in progress. And there are also the local mussels. But I am here to talk about oysters, and Maine’s roughly 100 oyster farmers deserve a little love, too.

Maine and oysters actually have a rather long mutual history. The original hunter-gatherers, and then the Mi’kmaq and the Abenaki First Nation peoples, were beneficiaries of an astonishing abundance of oysters to be found along the Maine coast and tidal tributaries. They were responsible for the giant piles of discarded oyster shells, or middens, found today along the banks of the Damariscotta River on Mid-Coast Maine. Rising over thirty feet high and 150 feet long, these middens are around 2,000 years old and stand as a testament to the once abundant wild oyster population in Maine.

Today almost all of Maine’s commercial oysters are the product of a thriving and expanding aquaculture industry along Mid-Coast Maine. Actually, oysters have been farmed in Maine since the 1800s, but never on a large scale. In the late 1940s, Maine scientists attempted to cultivate Europe’s native oyster species (Ostrea edulis, or the European Flat Oyster) in Harpswell, Boothbay Harbor, in the Taunton River in Franklin, and at other Mid-Coast locations. Yet this species generally never took hold because the Maine waters were too cold to sustain it. A few did survive, however, and reproduced to establish wild oyster beds where they were eventually harvested by divers beginning in 1973 when the first official aquaculture lease was issued by the state. The industry is now growing fast and with good reason.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Maine’s 3,478 miles coastline ranks fourth in the nation after Alaska, Florida and Louisiana. That is a lot of oyster farming potential. With over 1 million acres of territorial waters in Maine, and only 293 of these held in lease for oyster aquaculture, there is plenty of room to grow to meet a growing demand. Maine’s inner coastal waters, the fingerling coastal rivers (actually estuaries much like Chesapeake Bay only in miniature), and upriver tidal coves, provide stable seabeds and growth depth, as well as shelter from the Gulf of Maine’s strong tides and severe icing along the coast during the long winters. These provide excellent conditions for oyster farming. Many of currently leased acres – ranging from as small as 400 square feet and as large as 40 acres – are found in the Damariscotta River which appears to be replacing the Chesapeake Bay as the "The Napa Valley of Oysters," or "The Cote D’Or of oyster farming," as it provides all the food the oyster needs as it grows to market size.

Farmed oyster methods may vary. The oysters are allowed to grow to size, raked or hand-harvested during collection, and finally floated in wet storage containers prior to sale in order to purge the oysters of any grit or contaminants as they take on the taste of the cold, crisp briny water. Thankfully, the farming of oysters does not generate waste or pollute the water, even in densely packed beds. Instead, the bivalves remove nitrogen from the water and improve clarity, which benefits other aquatic plants and wildlife. The Maine oyster’s coveted "brininess" is a product of the varying degrees of water salinity – the levels of brackishness where the fresh river water meets the sea – which results from tidal flow, and the farming site’s proximity to the ocean. The levels of briny flavor can, therefore, differ dramatically from oyster to oyster, depending on where they were raised before collection and transfer to the storage containers. The result is that Maine oysters have become a delicacy sought by locals and visitors alike. They have not replaced the lobster, but the oyster is beginning to appear more and more on folks’ radar screens. I’m one of them.

Before being bagged for sale, most Maine oysters have their shells cleaned by hand and they are graded for quality and size. Oysters are usually sold by size; "Cocktails" being 2.5 - 3 inches long, "Selects" about 3-4 inches, and "Jumbos" over 4 inches. It takes about three years for an oyster to reach market size. The wave action and the constant ebb and flow of the tides tumbles the oysters in their storage containers, shaping their shells and creating the round shell and deep cup that restaurants seek. The Damariscotta River continues to be the most productive location for oyster farming in Maine, with nearly 80% of the state’s yield.

This past summer SallyAnn and I took a pleasant early autumn cruise down the Damariscotta River during which we had an opportunity to observe up close how Maine oysters are cultivated. In the wild, adult oysters spawn into the water and the surviving larvae – less than 1% of those fertilized eggs – settle to the riverbed and develop into an adult oyster. They attach themselves for life to a rock, a piling, but more often than not, to another oyster shell. Maine oyster farmers, on the other hand, must buy their oyster "seed," or "spat," annually from a handful of hatcheries around the state. These are cultivated in floating "nurseries" until they mature to size of a quarter after which they are "planted" in leased beds on the river floor or floated in cages, or "racks." Some of these spat escape the nurseries and today naturally spawned Eastern oysters have begun cropping up in the vicinity of more than a dozen aquaculture leases on the Damariscotta River.

Maine oysters, especially those from the Damariscotta River, are very much in demand. Today there are a growing number of oyster farms in Maine, each harvesting their own, unique variety. Each is known for the high quality of the tender oyster and the briny "liquor" that surrounds it. They are perhaps the best oysters you are likely to find anywhere. This flourishing industry is steadily increasing the supply, and not surprisingly, the demand at area restaurants and oyster bars is following suit. Take it from me. Once you have tasted a Maine oyster, especially one from the Damariscotta River, you will be pretty much hooked. I will be the first to admit that most oysters I have eaten in recent years . . . and we are not talking about a few . . . do not hold a candle lit on both ends to those large, sea-tangy oysters harvested on Maine’s Mid-Coast, including above all (IMHO) those from the Damariscotta River. But I’ll also confess to you that the Maine oysters ranks perhaps highest of all among other regions in North America, and especially here on the East Coast. I believe this is due to the almost pristine environment of the tidal flushed coastal rivers and the cold waters of the Gulf of Maine. And this is a lot coming from a long time resident of Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

At home in Maryland the oyster season on the Chesapeake Bay has traditionally been the months ending with the letter "r" – September through April – when the waters are colder and the oysters are less likely to pick up various bacteria found in warmer water. Some Maine oysters, thankfully, are available year-round, but they are most plentiful from spring through fall, and some say (and I tend to agree) that they taste best in the autumn months when they have stored fat and sugar making them plumper and sweeter yet still with that tasty brininess. Maine Oysters mature more slowly and they are a lot thicker and have much more meat inside the shell. They are a very healthy source of protein and contain very little fat. Make no mistake. Any reason to eat an oyster is a good reason.

Oyster farming is apparently here to stay in Maine, turning some lobster men and women into oyster farmers and giving them an opportunity to have a future on the water, especially as the lobster populations are quickly moving ever farther north toward Canadian waters due to the warming water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine. The demand for high-quality, cold-water oysters is rising, with Maine projected to be the Northeast’s leader as oyster prices there are commanding the highest landed prices in the region. And who can argue with success?

We are always happy to return to Maine each summer and eat a fair number of lobsters and steamers served with ears of fresh local corn. Still, I always arrive with a real hankering for some raw Maine oysters on a half shell served on a bed of ice. I have resided in Maryland just a short distance from the Chesapeake Bay for the past 44 years, and it is safe to say that for much of that time our local Chesapeake oysters have been the benchmark by which I have rated any oyster that crosses my plate . . . and palate . . . until now. As a proud transplanted summer Mainiac, I can now say without reservation that Maine is, in my humble opinion, the new gold standard for oysters. And there is probably not a finer oyster anywhere than one grown in the Damariscotta River on Mid-Coast Maine. You can take that to the bank.