Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Emily’s Oysters in Maine, Sun Farm Oysters in Rhode Island, and Cuttyhunk Shellfish Farms in Massachusetts are a few of the hardy crews eager to supply oysters for your Thanksgiving stuffing.

One of Suzanne’s oldest friends runs an oyster business on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts, and Thanksgiving is a big time for her. That’s because, in New England at least, many people see oysters as traditional for Thanksgiving.

The radio show Living on Earth recently did a show on the topic.

“STEVE CURWOOD: In the 19th century, oysters were a popular food item in the US, especially with the advent of commercial food canning, and by 1900, Americans were gobbling down some 160 million pounds of oysters a year. But overconsumption, sanitation concerns about raw oysters and the huge expansion of the beef and pork business that the railroads made possible, led to the oyster’s decline.

“Farmed correctly, oysters can be sustainable and their reefs protect coastal areas, so in recent years the popularity of local foods has spawned new oyster farmers — farmers that were hit hard this year with a drop in demand during the Covid crisis. Not everybody loves them of course, but oysters can be eaten in many ways beyond the half-shell. Celebrity chef Barton Seaver joins us from his kitchen near the harbor of South Freeport, Maine, to show how oysters can even lend flavor to Thanksgiving stuffing. … So tell me, why have the oyster farmers and fishermen been hit so hard by COVID-19?

“BARTON SEAVER: Oysters are, well, they’re so important to the restaurant industry. And that’s where so many of us go to get them. By some anecdotal accounts, in March, April, May, large oyster dealers around the country I’ve talked to lost 98% of their business, who were selling into restaurants; some of that has come back. Massachusetts has some hard data, around about 60 to 70% of their oysters landed, that business was lost. …

“CURWOOD: Where I live in southern New Hampshire near the Great Bay … I noticed that there were folks who actually had set up stands along the side of the road to sell oysters individually to people.

“SEAVER: Yeah! Well, that’s been one of the great success stories. And that’s sort of the inherent nature of oyster farming is that these are small businessmen and -women who are running a farm, and they are entrepreneurs, and they were able to pivot quite quickly. And as, in COVID, we turned our attentions anew to local food systems, oysters are a prominent part of that for those of us on the coasts. There is no food that is of place as much as are oysters, clams, mussels. …

“CURWOOD: Now, we know from history that Native Americans brought shellfish to the pilgrims that came here to the New England area in the 1600s. To what extent do you think oysters and shellfish should regain a place at the Thanksgiving table?

“SEAVER: Well, oysters were one of the foundational foods of this country and long before the white man set foot on this continent, oysters were serving and sustaining native populations for aeons. … But through decimation of local oyster populations in the wild, throughout the United States and our coastlines, we lost access to oysters. …

“CURWOOD: Tell me why you think they’re so important ecologically.

“SEAVER: Oysters, amongst other shellfish, are you know, what was known as a keystone species. They’re fundamental to the health of the ecosystems in which they are prevalent. They provide water quality, they provide habitat for countless other species. They are the bedrock upon which ecosystems’ health and resiliency relies. And in the absence of wild oysters, because we’ve decimated them through overfishing, through disease, etc., habitat loss, oyster farming has stepped into the role of providing those ecosystem services, those vital services.

Every oyster you eat encourages an oyster farmer, a small businessman or -woman, to plant many more, to augment and expand upon those ecosystem services provided by them.

“And in that way, I think it’s our patriotic duty to eat as many farm-raised shellfish as we can.

“CURWOOD: Yeah, in fact, you know, as the storms pick up with climate disruption, oyster reefs are a great way to slow down the storm surge, huh?

“SEAVER: Absolutely. We’ve seen this with Katrina, we saw this with Superstorm Sandy, that these vulnerable civic centers are made more vulnerable by the lack of those natural oyster reefs that naturally stopped those storm surges. …

“CURWOOD: There’s a project going on that the Nature Conservancy is a big part of. They’re [buying up] oysters that are otherwise going unsold to the restaurants during this pandemic, to help farmers who need to have a source of cash, and they’re using those oysters to restore more shellfish reefs. Why is it important to have oysters in local communities? …

“SEAVER: [Sustainable small business.] In my village, there’s a young woman named Emily — ‘Emily’s Oysters.’ She grew up here, and she went to school out in Puget Sound, and she was looking for something to do. [You know there’s a] brain drain in small, rural communities. But oyster farming caught her heart … and now she’s farming 50, 60, 70,000 oysters out in the waters that I can see from my house, pretty much. And she’s selling at local farmers’ markets. [To me, that’s] the quintessential story of success and of human sustainability acting in concert with our ecosystems. …

“CURWOOD: You have some delicious recipes, Barton, on your website. There’s — oh, the oyster risotto, the broiled oysters Rockefeller. And I believe you’re going to show us how to make an oyster stuffing, being that we’re close to Thanksgiving, huh? Now, I must say I never knew the stuffing on my Thanksgiving table could feature shellfish.”

More at Living on Earth, here, where you also can get the recipe for stuffing. Barton Seaver’s book is The Joy of Seafood: The All-Purpose Seafood Cookbook, with almost 1000 recipes.