Every spring growing up my father would take me to Chincoteague Island where we would spend our days at the beach and National Wildlife Refuge and at night eat an unlawful amount of oysters and mussels.  My dad liked his gin and tonics, fresh seafood and wildlife (alive in the wild) in that order. That, a rocking chair some stars above and quiet were all he asked for on his holidays. I learned just about everything from my dad including my love of raw oysters, starry skies and reading (while he was drinking his gin (with a little tonic) on the porch I was engulfing the most recent science fiction novel or biography for young adults).

He considered it sacrilege to put anything on a raw oyster – you ate them raw out of the shell or you didn’t bother. Buckets of mussels, on the other hand, were consumed with copious amounts of melted butter and garlic (thank everything for my extremely high metabolism when I was a child).

I don’t remember ever eating oysters or mussels at home, but I’m pretty sure the amount we would consume in a week of visiting two or three of his favorite restaurants on the Island held us for the rest of the year – it also earned me recognition from more than one member of various wait staff – a fact I’m quite proud of to this day. We might have had some at restaurants in D.C., but those never held the same impact as the ones eaten on the Island.

It’s funny, only now do I wonder how did a man who grew up in rural Arkansas and moved to Washington, D.C. in his early 20’s develop a love of oysters and mussels…of the sea? Was it that he never experienced them as a child and his introduction opened a window. These are the kinds of questions I wish he were alive to answer – these and for so many more reasons.

Well, dad you would have loved this – my friend Cheryl and I went to an oyster farm and I held two-month old oysters and later, with oyster juice dripping down my leg (my arms covered in OFF) hunched over a counter in a (really nice) restaurant kitchen consumed maybe the most delicious oyster – a Nonesuch Belon – it was of the sea.  Of this he would have been proud.

My favorite oysters: Nonesuch, Hog Island, Glidden Point , New Orleans (whatever I’ve had there), Fisher Island, East Dennis, Pemaquid and Island Creek Oyster. Obviously, whatever I was eating in Chincoteague would be up there!

Past oyster posts: Barb Scully and Glidden Point Oysters,  Erin Byers Murray’s book and Pemaquid Oysters in Damariscotta , Oyster Po-Boy in New Orleans (one of the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth), B&G’s Oyster Invitational (go to B&G’s in Boston and eat oysters!! DO this if you want a truly educational oyster experience – Rowan Jacobsen instructed the staff on oysters and owner Barbara Lynch ROCKS).

Pick up a copy of Rowan’s book A Geography of Oysters: The Connoisseur’s Guide to Oyster Eating in North America. I just did and while thoroughly enjoying it am learning a heck of a lot about one of my favorite foods.

My visit to Nonesuch Oysters upweller/nursery in Biddeford followed by a visit to the farm in Pine Point:

Abigail Carroll, the founding farmer of Nonesuch Oysters. Less than five years ago she was living in France and engaged to a count!   She’s smart, down to earth, determined and wait till you hear the story below about the upweller. Wow!

Noreen and I checking out the upweller (thanks for the photos Cheryl!)

Chris Betjemann, a Biddeford real estate developer and owner of Full Circle Design and Abigail consulted with Aquaculturalist Bill Mook of Mook Sea Farm about how to build a ‘land based’ upweller as most of them are integrated into floating docks.

Bill set out the general requirements, inflow/outflow, screen sizes, disease prevention, and then Chris designed it according to a few criteria Abigail had. She wanted to use the lobster tanks because she found them for a low price and  to base the whole system on the 5-gallon bucket because it’s small, cheap and ubiquitous. Abigail had worked on an upweller, but it was a large scale float and she wanted something ‘chick friendly,’ that smaller people could work without breaking their backs. Chris ran with the project. He put it all on auto-cad and figured out how to design the plummin using pre-fab pvc pipes. Abigail’s team (an employee, two UNE interns and herself) helped Chris with the construction, everything from re-fiberglassing the tanks to gluing the pvc pipes to configuring the buckets etc.

Jeri Fox of UNE got her aquaculture lab involved in this project – and Dale Levitt of Roger & Williams College in Rhode Island consulted as well.

(Second from bottom – empty oyster shells add calcium)

The fine screen bottom allows water to flow up

Two-month old oysters!!!

Making our way to the farm.

Completely random…we passed Fun Town. I’d heard so many radio ads had to take a photo, never have to go there.

A Belon!

According to Abigail, all oysters grown in bags appear white with some color markings on them. All oysters (American and Belons) grown on the ground are hearty and green.

A Nonesuch Belon Oyster = the taste of the sea.

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.” –  Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

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