Burnt My Fingers

I recently attended a wonderful demo at Fin Your Fishmonger, an excellent local resource for those in New York’s Capital District, with Patrick “Shucker Paddy” McMurray. He is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s fastest oyster shucker for preparing 39 oysters for service in one minute. This demo, though, focused on a broad range of oyster lore and it was so dense that I quickly put away my notebook and grabbed my camera.

Here are some of the key points covered in the video, with particularly important ones emphasized:

• • When shucking teardrop shaped oysters: the point shows where you go in with your knife. Hold it cup side down so you don’t lose the liquor.
  • When shucking Belon (European) oysters: go in from the side, hit it, cut the abductor muscle, pull back.
  • In Paris they like to have the bottom attached to prove the freshness of the oyster, unlike in North America where we prefer our oysters on the half shell.
  • He is 4x Canadian champion, world champion as world’s fastest oyster shucker. Galway, Ireland world championship is his favorite because you are judged on how well you open.
  • A good oyster by competition definition is free of grit, no cuts, not flipped in shell.
  • Oyster has two mantles, four set of gills. Mantle holds cilia hair that captures phytoplankton for food.
  • The more oysters you put in the ocean the better for the environment. They don’t filter everything like charcoal filter, very picky.
  • Flavor comes from species, region and method of growth, eg rack grown, bottom finished.
  • When eating a flight of oysters: go from mildest to fullest flavor.
  • Start flight with east coast oyster. Crassostrea Virginica is most popular, will look different depending on where and how it is grown even though same species.
  • The further from equator you get, the more flavor the oyster will have.
  • Kushi [?] from British Columbia. Tide tumbled, grown in a flat rack that shakes with the tide and is tumbled to smooth out jagged shell. West coast oyster rugged, fluted shell, tend to be bigger but they are grown cocktail size to diners’ preference.
  • East coast oyster salty sweet, west coast more complex flavor ocean, sweet melon, sea salt, cucumber, sweet cream.
  • Kumamoto (Crassostrea Sikaema). Buttery, sweet cream, minimal salt. Grows in small cup shape naturally. Others now grown to emulate the Kumamoto in shape and size.
  • All over the trend is toward growing smaller oysters, cocktail grade, to get product out faster in a form factor customers prefer.
  • Olympia is only species indigenous to North America. Everything else is from Asia.
  • Belon came in 40s as an experiment. 3-4 years to maturity which is longer than most people want to wait. But they grow wild. Belon (European oyster) has metallic taste. 10% like oysters, of those 10% like European oyster.
  • 15^th century monk wrote rule for no oysters in months without R. Ostrea starts a reproduction cycle in May. Holds its young in gills.
  • All oysters switch hit, change sex every year.
  • Napoleon actually responsible for enforcing May till September ban because one year he ate all the oysters so none were left to reproduce. September starts Oyster Festival season which is Paddy’s busiest travel time.
  • How to eat an oyster: slide it in, two bites, breathe in through your mouth. As with wine, oxygen helps you identify the flavors.
  • When he shucks oysters he puts it on the block with the hinge toward him.
  • You will get cut by the shell more often than knife, it is sharper. Glove is to hold it in place vs protect the hand.
  • Trouble with hinges is what keeps restaurants from buying a particular oyster. He tells growers to find a place to grow them, then work on the shell construction.
  • Boring sponge: sponge that actually bores into the shell. Gets shell very brittle, osteoprorosis. Lip shuck technique: knife goes in through the hinge. Cut the bottom, pull the top off. Because hinge was going to crumble away. Service looks good but lose liquor, oyster not in bottom shell. This is for oysters grown from New York south.
  • Adductor is thing that holds the two shells together so the oyster doesn’t spend energy staying open only to close. Belon have higher percentage of slow pitch muscles. Won’t hold on very long. Put a rubber band on and it. Belon only lasts a week out of water.
  • Oysters from New York 4 weeks out of water before they open. West coast 1-2 weeks.
  • Match the angle of the cup when coming in. Come in on outside so not in middle of meat. Blade rides between meat and outer rim.
  • You don’t need pressure but technique when opening oyster. He designed a custom knife (available on Amazon, photo below) which has three finger leverage you can use.
  • He gets “wet stone and seaweed” taste out of the Belon.
  • Less is more. Layering condiments but taking away from the flavor of the oyster. Smoking Belon in shell fantastic.
  • Wiggle the knife in like a key in a lock till it doesn’t want to go any more then turn it like a key in the lock.
  • Raspberry Point: a delicious brand oyster grown in New London Bay in newfoundland. Bright salts and ocean flavor.
  • Lucky Lime, an oyster with green color in the summer time. Called fine de claire vert in French. Algae filled ponds, then throw oysters in and gills become green. Oceany vegetal flavor. Very good import to use in service.
  • Discussion of co-inhabitants in and out of the shells… Snail sticks to the outside of the oyster. Limpet is edible but not a lot eat them. For some reason if lots of limpets on a box of oysters, those are great oysters.
  • Pea crabs. “got something in it” is typical diner’s complaint. Pea crab looks like little yellow pea. Tastes like softshell crab. Delicious! Save up a bunch for adventurous sushi.
  • All shuckers have a bucket to save oysters you can’t serve because of animals in there etc.

  (After the camera stopped) Discussion of whiskey and oyster tasting. Many oyster beds in whiskey distilling regions like Scotland. So serve an oyster, then pour a bit of whisky in the empty shell where it will mix with seawater. You can sell this for $5 but it’s only a ¼ ounce of whiskey so the diner will order more.