Oyster

July 01, 2024

One of the fun things about vacationing in the summer is the food and drink festivals that happen somewhere every weekend.  When we arrived, we saw signs advertising an event in Freeport, Maine.  While Freeport is only 17 miles (27 km) from my sister’s house, that meant 40 minutes in Maine driving time.  There is no “straight shot” and the twisting roads average around 40 mph (64 kph) driving speed.  I wanted to go to Freeport anyway as this is the headquarters and outlet store of L.L. Bean.  L.L. Bean is a retail company founded in 1912 by Leon Leonwood Bean specializing in clothing and outdoor recreation equipment.  On Saturday we borrowed the car and took off on the way to the festival (including a short patch of dirt road).  We arrived around noon on the first day of the festival to find it in full swing.  Parking was hard to find, but it was hardly more than usual as the Bean outlet is surrounded by other outlets and specialty shops located in the three-square block area of town.  After finding a place to park, we made our way to the Maine Oyster festival.

When I looked online, I found the Maine Oyster Festival is celebrating its third year in Freeport.  Organizers of the event say Maine is now home to more than 150 oyster farms and dozens of these sea farms joined mobile shuckers to serve oysters harvested from up and down Maine’s coastline.  The festival is not only a celebration of the oysters, it also celebrates the people who farm them.  Adam Augulewicz, of the Spinnaker Shellfish Company said, “We love trying to get people into the industry.  It’s a good industry to be in.  It’s fun, it’s pretty laid back, we’re all just looking to make a good product for our customers.”  The L.L. Bean hosted event included live music, oyster farm tours, an oyster of the year ceremony, a professional shucking contest, and opportunities for tasting raw, broiled, and fried oysters.  Although it seemed lightly attended, “a good time was had by all.”

Oyster harvesting represents the highest-volume production of shellfish in the country, with 42 million pounds (19,050,879.5 kg) of oysters harvested in 2019 alone, according to the Fisheries of the US report.  While an oyster lover might have the palate to detect the differences between East Coast and West Coast oysters, the nuances of the varieties run deep.  In addition to the range of oysters around the country, each oyster-producing region offers different growing conditions that can impact the size, shape, texture, and flavor of the oysters.  The environmental factors that affect the oyster crop are like the terroir (French term) used to describe the environmental factors on the wine crop.  For oysters this is termed “merroir,” as it refers to the marine and not terrestrial environment.  Exploring and comparing the flavors across multiple regions is part of oyster tasting.  While the Oyster Festival featured Maine oysters, the nuances between areas were still evident.  The Freeport Oyster Festival started as the Maine clams and the Massachusetts oysters are both moving north due to warming sea water.  Prediction says the clam harvest will end up moving to Nova Scotia, Canada.

THOUGHTS:  Melissa and I arrived two hours after the start of the first day of the Oyster Festival.  We immediately bought our tasting tickets and tried out one vendor.  We toured the booths (oyster related products and art) and sat sipping a drink before deciding to taste again.  I stood in line (30 minutes) to get a noodle stir fry while Melissa went for raw oysters.  Three of the vendors were already out of oysters and she gave up.  We thought this odd as the festival still had 5 hours before it closed that night.  We stood in a fourth line and were finally able to cash in all our oyster tickets.  The second batch did not seem as good as the first, but that may have been in part because of the sour taste already in our mouths.  Many sea and land plants and animals are being forced to migrate to new locations to find environments suitable to survival.  Merely being in “the water” does not mean they are safe.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.