How well do you know your oysters?
—everything from stewed and pickled to stuffed inside turkey or scrambled eggs—across hundreds of cookbooks up and down the coasts and throughout the Midwest. “Oyster cellars were all over the country—even inland places like Kansas City,” says Travis Croxton, co-owner of Virginia-based Rappahannock Oyster Co. “They were the Starbucks of their day.”
Clearly, Americans are getting back their hankering for oysters, just like much of the rest of the planet. The predominant oysters grown on the West Coast of North America, Pacifics are often named after the place where they are raised, such as Tomales Bay in Northern California and Totten Inlet in Fanny Bay, British Columbia. But farmers will occasionally use their own proprietary names for their crop, such as Morro Bay Oyster Company’s Pacific Golds and Hog Island Oyster Company’s Sweetwaters.
The Croxton’s crop out of Virginia is a prime example of the wide-ranging, distinct flavor variations of the Atlantic. Their Rappahannock River oysters are sweet and buttery with full-bodied taste infused with rich minerality from the freshwater that washes down from the Blue Ridge Mountains and just a hint of salt. The Rochambeaus, grown nearby in the brackish water where the York River meets the Chesapeake Bay, are a bit saltier, slightly less sweet, and cleaner on the palate.
Kumamotos take a lot longer to grow, three years opposed to just two, and are significantly smaller. What they lack in size, they make up for in flavor. Their semi-firm meat tends to be very sweet, often melony, with more nuanced floral notes. Washington State aquaculturists, including Taylor Shellfish, Chelsea Farms, and Jones Family Farm, have been bringing them back, selling them to restaurants and directly to customers on the web.European Flat oysters are native to the western European coast, stretching all the way from Norway to Morocco and into the Mediterranean.
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