Web Extra: More Oyster Tales

More oyster tales from Robb Walsh’s Sex, Death & Oysters © 2009 Counterpoint

When water temperatures get colder at the end of the summer, oysters begin storing a carbohydrate compound called glycogen, marine biologist Dr. Sammy Ray explained. To humans, glycogen tastes like sugar. As the water gets colder, more glycogen accumulates, and the oysters get plumper and taste sweeter. Gulf oysters are at their absolute peak at the coldest part of the winter.

Some oyster experts are predicting that the problems caused by summer oysters will soon be resolved, not by the FDA or the oystermen, but by the insurance industry. “The handwriting is on the wall,” Lance Robinson, of Texas Parks and Wildlife, told me. At the most recent meeting of the ISSC in Texas, oystermen were warned that insurance companies may stop writing liability policies for restaurants that serve raw oysters in the summer.

“He’s right,” oyster boat captain Misho Ivic agreed. “Some kind of law is going to be passed that allows only post-harvest treated oysters to be sold in the summer. I am building a facility to freeze oysters for summer sales right now.”

I won’t be eating any of Misho’s frozen oysters. Post-harvest treated oysters are the Gulf oyster industry’s favorite new product, a half-shell oyster that is safe to eat all year round. I have sampled them all, the frozen, pressurized, and heat-treated varieties, and I can say with some authority—they all suck. Dead oysters just don’t taste the same.

I would rather wait until the winter and eat big fat oysters like the ones sitting on the table at Gilhooley’s. “How did you like the oysters?” Misho asked as I finished off the last of them. The oysters were absolutely succulent, big and fat, with a flavor that was both salty and very sweet. “I picked them out myself,” he said. Gilhooley’s is Misho’s favorite hangout, so they get his choicest oysters.

I was still savoring the flavor as I drove home. And I kept turning the story over in my head: a record oyster harvest a few miles from the Houston Ship Channel, of all places. And hardly anyone seemed to know a thing about it. Newspaperman that I am, I wondered if there were more oyster stories out there waiting to be discovered.

That’s how I got hooked.

Oyster snobs

Shortly after an oyster-boat excursion in Galveston Bay, I attended a holiday party in the Montrose neighborhood of central Houston, where I ended up in a discussion with two women, both relative newcomers to Texas. One woman was from San Francisco; the other was from Cleveland. They were complaining about the less-than-pristine beaches of nearby Galveston Island and the disgusting waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

“How could anybody swim in the oil blobs and Styrofoam floating in that ugly brown water,” the one from San Francisco asked. I smiled and shook my head amiably. Personally, I swim in that water every summer, and I have marinated my children in it for most of their lives. But if Galveston was too unsightly for the newcomers’ beach-going tastes, well then, “bless their hearts,” as we say in Texas.

I didn’t bother pointing out to Miss San Francisco that only blubbery seals and surfers in wetsuits are insulated enough to venture into the icy waters of the Pacific around San Francisco. Nor did I bother reminding Miss Cleveland that the Cuyahoga River is legendary among pollution watchers for its tendency to burst into flames.

“And who would eat oysters that come out of that water?” the San Franciscan continued. Suddenly, I felt my jaw muscles tighten and my stomach contract. Newly informed about Texas oysters, I had a strange need to defend them.

“I would,” I volunteered. “But actually the oysters don’t come from the Gulf, they come from Galveston Bay. In fact, it’s one of the most productive oyster reefs in America at the moment. And the oysters are fabulous this year.”

“Where is Galveston Bay?” the San Franciscan wanted to know.

“It’s between Kemah on the west and Anahuac on the east,” I attempted to explain, but she had no idea where I was talking about. “You know where the ships enter the Houston Ship Channel?” I continued helpfully.

“Oh, gross,” remarked a vegetarian woman who was listening in on the edge of the conversation. “So you think all those chemicals spewing out of the oil tankers give the oysters a special flavor?” Cornered now by skeptics, I felt my adrenaline begin to flow.

I still had the Texas Parks and Wildlife oyster map in my car. I considered going out to get it.

“What I resent is that I can’t get good oysters in Houston because they have so many cheap ones here,” the Californian said. “Gulf oysters are big and tough. I don’t want to chew on an oyster. I would never eat an oyster any bigger than this,” she said, making a silver-dollar-sized circle with her fingers. “I like Kumamoto oysters.”

“How much do they cost?” I asked her.

“I think the last time I had them, it was like $12 for six . . . ”

“I like cultivated oysters too,” I admitted. “They’re delicious. But six little-bitty oysters for $12? You live in the last place in America where you can get a dozen oysters for a couple of bucks—and you want to import $24-a-dozen cultivated oysters from California?”

“That’s right,” she said.

“You’re an oyster snob,” I shrugged.

“Okay,” she said. “I have no problem with that.”

I tried to put things in a cultural perspective. “You know, there were once oyster houses all over the country—Chicago, New England, Chesapeake Bay—but those places are all gone. The native oysters are all fished out in most of the United States.

“The Gulf Coast is the last place in America with wild oysters. It’s the only place where you can still sit down in an old-fashioned oyster saloon and eat oysters for pennies apiece. The end of the golden era of American oyster culture is happening right here in front of our eyes. And you still have a chance to see it,” I ranted, perhaps a little too dramatically.

The women backed away from me and struck up other conversations.

See the full article in the December 2009 issue.

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