Posted on 07/16/2020 8:14:07 AM PDT by Jacquerie
One of our greatest Florida foods is about to be put off-limits for five years.
I am talking about Apalachicola oysters, those sweet and salty mollusks that are best served raw on the half-shell with a little lemon juice. There was a time when nine out of every 10 oysters eaten in Florida came from Apalachicola Bay, and one out of every 10 across the U.S. – but not anymore.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is scheduled to vote next week on banning the harvest of wild oysters from Apalachicola Bay starting Aug. 1 and continuing through 2025.
When I heard about this, I was stunned.
The first raw oysters I ever ate, in Pensacola’s Marina Oyster Barn, were Apalachicola oysters. The last ones I ate, at a now-closed Apalachicola seafood joint called Boss Oyster, were fresh from Apalachicola Bay. The thought of going without them for five years is hard to swallow.
People in Apalachicola have been harvesting the bounty of their bay since the 1800s. Some families count four or five generations of oystermen among their ancestors.
Between oystermen, local restaurant shuckers and cannery workers, the industry supported more than 2,500 jobs The humble oyster has become fused with the town’s identity, to the point where the sides of Franklin County Sheriff’s Department cruisers carry the slogan “Oyster Capital of the World.”
Food critics and restaurant owners from Miami and New Orleans say Apalachicola Bay oysters are among the finest in the world, if not the finest, the New York Times reported in 2002. Chefs of fancy restaurants in Charleston, S.C., where mediocre seafood will be sent back, prize them above oysters from their native coast.
What made the oyster so plentiful and succulent was the delicate balance of salty Gulf of Mexico water and freshwater flowing out of the Apalachicola River and, to a lesser extent, Tate’s Hell Swamp. But then the river flow began drying up.
A drought that began in 2010 and lasted through 2012, combined with increased usage of water far upstream to serve the growing population of Atlanta, limited the freshwater getting to the bay. That altered the balance and limited the growth of new oysters to replace the ones harvested. A decade later, some reefs “have become so degraded that there is little-to-no shell material left,” a wildlife commission report says.
The saltier water also brought in predators called oyster drills, a marine snail that attacked the bay’s oysters so that young ones didn’t live long enough to mature.
$3 a dozen back in the day.
Really spectacular oysters.
Between BP and a series of hurricanes knocking out sand bars the geography of the northern Gulf of Mexico has been greatly compromised.
Hope they recover soon.
It appears the altered water composition caused by increased population was the major culprit in the oyster’s demise.
Five years? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve been to Boss Oyster. They don’t even rinse the shells off and you get a mouthful of mud with your oyster. No love lost over that place. Others were excellent.
Boss was a great place when it opened. We’d visit the cozy back bar to watch the Atlanta Braves on Saturday afternoons and munch on great bar food, including oysters of course.
But, the Boss went tourist. Its quality of food and service declined when they realized most people visit only once.
Oysters from the tributaries of the Chesapeake have also been much prized and for the same reason. Brackish systems produce sweet oysters. Sadly most of these prolific beds, leased to watermen, are now empty of oysters. There are still some but they are difficult to find.
My nephew, now sadly gone, trained his dog to harvest some of these wonderful oysters from southern Md. Here is a video of his dog at work.
https://www.facebook.com/woody.hill.14/videos/803289293043031
If you don’t care, then move along.
I don’t understand why people feel the need to comment on something they supposedly “don’t care about!”
Life is short. Comments on things you DO care about.
Apparently we can’t view that unless we are on Facebook. Is there a YouTube?
Oysters have been disappearing for years. Seems to have started when there was several years of high rains and the
Bay had too much fresh water running in. But whatever, this is not anything new. Love the area still though!
Quick story about Tate’s Hell. Farmer named Cebe Tate had a bunch of livestock killed by “something”. So one night he set his dogs
on it and off into the swamp they went. He got lost. 7 days and 7 nights. When he finally emerged from the swamp someone saw him and asked him who he was and what happened. He said “I’m Cebe Tate and I’ve been to Hell!” and died on the spot.
Too bad, been to Apalachicola many times years ago, and ate at Boss Oyster among other places. Around the Panama City area (not at the beaches) Gene’s Oyster Bar, a real dive, was always packed at meal time, and had great oysters on the half-shell. Uncle Ernie’s in St. Andrews, still being rebuilt after the hurricane, had the best fried oyster Po’Boy sandwich I’ve ever eaten, huge oysters, twice the size of other places. All the restaurants in N.Fla will be affected by the shutdown.
I’m a big oyster fan, and have eaten my way from the Chesapeake down the east coast and around the gulf. My personal favorites can be found here in Abbeville, Louisiana:
When I was a kid, I didn’t think I would like oysters. They smelled fishy to me and they looked gross.
Fortunately, I was raised in a family that you ate what was set before you at the table. No complaints or you felt it on the rear end.
So I was compelled to try them. I didn’t understand the fuss about how great they were until I got a little older and maybe my taste buds got used to them, but I love the oysters from Apalachicola.
When times weren’t as tough as they had been, my Dad would go meet the boats and freshly caught whatever, and purchase seafood directly from the catchers. My father was a very strict man in so many ways, but he showed our family great love in other ways, and one was in providing good healthy food for us. Cooking from scratch was economical, and took longer than buying prepared items, but was much healthier for us. I have passed this value on to my children, too.
I love oysters in any form - have never tried any from the east coast, though. Here in the Puget Sound region they are plentiful and mighty good.
Link broken, you have been shdow banned for having a life.
Works for me!
Sorry, you are right. The Facebook link does not work. The one below it does.
I got a friend who grows oysters on a Chesapeake Bay tributary. I guess he pays a little bit for the spat and then gets at least hundreds of oysters every year. Very tasty, but the shells are more brittle and break easier when shucking.
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