Lowcountry Oyster Roast

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April 6, 2011 by paiday

Food inspires passion. The colors, textures, and flavors all play their individual roles in fleetingly,artistic platings. As passionate as many people are about their food, there is only one edible that has the ability to polarize people to the opposite extremes of grandeur and disdain: the noble/ humble oyster.

At once the ugliest and most reviled of foods, the oyster offers such contradictions. The dirty, bumby gray shell covers a soft, translucent, delicate flesh which sits on a shimmering bed, not to mention that you might find a pearl. The oyster has been reinvented over the years to appeal to some of the more finicky eaters, with preparations such as Florentine, casino, etc. Plenty of folks really feel as if they are living when a plate of these juicy little mollusks are brought to the table fried and covered in tartar sauce. But in my opinion the true food lover savors these babies on the half-shell with nothing more than a squeeze of lemon or if you’re from South Carolina, a hearty splash of Tabasco.

A good bar towel is a must for an oyster roast. It will make your guests shuck with a smile.

People from South Carolina love their oysters. They also love their oyster roasts. I have personally been to two in the last month. What is great about an oyster roast is how little effort is involved. Set up some shuckers, lemon, Tabasco, cocktail, and crackers, throw the oysters in a pan on the grill and you have a party.  We have long sense started getting a little fancier and offering a hearty pot of chicken bog (chicken with rice and sausage, which is wetter that a purloo but dryer than a stew) or chicken gumbo.

Chicken and sausage gumbo provides a filling partner for oysters

Much debate wages as to the virtues of Atlantic Coast versus Apalachicola, and don’t even get us started on the Northern Blue Points. Each oyster cove is as individual as a finger print. The salt, size, and shape of each oyster depends on where they are harvested. This weekend in Florida, we were able to savor and compare the extremely salty, cluster oyster from the Crookedneck River in South Georgia as well as some large, mild gulf coast oysters. Apalachicolas are prized by restaurants because of their plentiful farming as well as the large size and individual shell. Clusters on the other hand, which are harvesting in Carolina and Georgia Atlantic Coast waters are smaller and much, much saltier. These little guys were so salty it felt like being rolled by a wave with each bite.

Megan shucks with her own personalized (engraved) oyster shucker.

The oysters were delicious, the gumbo hearty and satisfying and the company the nonpareil. A quick trip down to Fernandina and one last oyster roast before summer is the way to kick of Master’s Week. And as a side note, a guest who hails from Summerville, SC came prepared with her own monogrammed oyster shuckers. Not even kidding.

Fernandina locals love a good oyster roast.