"oysters" news and stories

In a city renowned for one of America's most distinct and vibrant food cultures, a way of life is in danger: One by one, New Orleans restaurants are beginning to drop oysters from their menus, and it's not a matter of food safety.

"I wish we could change people's perception about our seafood," Gerald Amato, owner of Mother's Restaurant lamented this morning. "We had one customer say the catfish tasted oily. Catfish is pond-raised! It's just perception," he stressed. "Seafood has never been tested more than it is now and we can't sell it if it's not safe."

It comes down to supply. Amato pointed to an empty pan in the kitchen next to another heaped with pink Gulf shrimp. "That's where the oysters would go. We're supposed to get a shipment in tomorrow," Amato said. His oysters are supplied from P&J Oyster Company, the longest running oyster house in America, who earlier this summer was forced to lay off the majority of its shuckers due to supply shortages for the first time in 134 years.

On Sunday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) closed fishing in federal waters affected by the massive oil spill in the Gulf, which continues to drift towards Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

This area of the Gulf is prized for its shrimp, oyster and blue-crab fisheries, currently at their peak spawning period. While approximately 80 percent of the seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported -- meaning most seafood lover's dinner plates will not be directly impacted by the spill -- the area's fishery is significant. In 2008, more than 1 billion pounds of finfish and shellfish were harvested from the Gulf region. Experts predict that Louisiana's fishing industry alone could face a $2.5 billion loss.

"This is iconic American seafood," says Gavin Gibbons, spokesman for the National Fisheries Institute. "When you get past looking at the volume of seafood affected, you start looking at the lives impacted, and it's a tough row to hoe for those fishermen."

Oyster poachers (and we're not talking about the cooking method here) have law enforcement officials in several seaside states caught up in late-night patrols and watery stakeouts. They're trying to capture brazen thieves who are harvesting bivalves from areas designated as sanctuaries, or from waters closed to shellfish gathering because of pollution worries.

In Maryland, there is the added concern that poachers are primarily bagging wild Eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica), which are severely depleted. "We are at less than one percent of our historic population in the Chesapeake Bay right now," says Mike Naylor, shellfish program director, Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

Police use night-vision technology to search for criminals who are known to mark oyster beds with milk-jugs and glow sticks easing their return after dark. But poachers are upping the technology to escape being caught. "They're using radar, cell phones and spotters. They know where our police boats are tied, and they get a call when our boats leave the dock. They're going to extreme measures," says Naylor.

We love things that snuggle up and pair beautifully. Champagne and caviar. Eggs and bacon. Cheese and, well, everything. But a rich, creamy stout didn't naturally come to mind as a match to delicate briny oysters. Boy, were we mistaken.

"It's a less understood classic combination, and it's really fantastic," says renowned bar manager Jackson Cannon of Eastern Standard in Boston which will be serving the beer. In fact, the two go together so well, Boston-based Harpoon Brewery has teamed-up with local oyster grower, Skip Bennett, and is launching Island Creek Oyster Stout as part of their 100-Barrel Series in early February.

You heard that right -- brewer Katie Tame is slipping 180 oyster bodies into the kettle during the brewing process, which is expected to give the beer an enriched mouth feel, better head retention and a hint of minerality. It's not something Tame invented though. "Around the early 1700s, oysters and stouts were inexpensive and commonly paired together. By the early 20th century, they started putting oysters into the brewing process," she says.

Unlike many regions, the food of the lowcountry isn't based on products or brand names: there are few firms that produce pre-packaged or prepped ingredients in the region (Adluh, the flour mill, is one of the few). Nathalie Dupree, author of dozens of books on the regions cuisine, says it's with good reason and dates back more than a century.

While the rest of the country smoggily industrialized, "the South had an economic crisis after the Civil War and had to subsist essentially on what it grew and what it caught. People couldn't afford to buy things, they had to eat from their own gardens until after World War II essentially." There was no money or clientele to start food factories on a mass scale. But though times then may have been tough, it's left a cherished legacy now. "That preserved the cuisine all throughout the south, and it's the primary reason for southern cooking staying so different." Here's a sampling of the foods that make this area of the country so unique.