Oysters

A new scientific study recommends halting all commercial harvest of oysters in Maryland, warning that the ecologically important bivalves are even more depleted than previously believed and that continuing to catch them risks eliminating them altogether from much of the upper Chesapeake Bay. The study, led by researchers with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, concludes that the oyster population in Maryland's portion of...

WASHINGTON -- THERE WERE MANY bottles of wine and dozens of raw oysters. It was a late Friday afternoon in our nation's capital, and we appeared to be conducting important national business, figuring out which wines were the best partners for oysters.The "we" was the Washington "we," a panel of experts meeting in a room with gorgeous wood walls. I had been waiting a long time to be on one of these panels, to be a person who had been "summoned to Washington."When the summons came, I jumped in my car and headed around the Anacostia Freeway.

Felicity Pocock of Baltimore requested a recipe for an "oyster-artichoke soup, or stew, ... which was a standard at a restaurant in New Orleans." Michael Cheswick of Eldersburg responded. "From the Gumbo Shop in New Orleans, oyster-and-artichoke soup for Felicity in Baltimore. The Gumbo Shop on South Front Street is one of the best-kept secrets in New Orleans. During a week's stay, I must have eaten there three or four times. I have served the soup during Super Bowls and at Christmas. ... You can get the Gumbo Shop cookbook online.

Since March includes the letter "R," it is, I believe, a good month to eat oysters. The "R-month" axiom was passed along to me by fans of Chesapeake Bay oysters when I arrived here almost 30 years ago. It has served me well. During these "R" months -- September through April -- the weather is chilly, the oysters are fat and I am in the mood to enjoy the mollusks. But recently, in The Big Oyster (Ballantine Books, 2006), a look at New York City history through its once-thriving oyster trade, author Mark Kurlansky called this "R" month outlook an "ancient and somewhat mythological belief."

Oysters taste better as the weather gets colder. A Chesapeake Bay waterman told me that once, and I have since accepted it as gospel. I believe almost anything that the guys who catch oysters tell me about the mollusks.I believe, for instance, that oysters "plump up after a good frost." That the "r" months, ones with the letter "r" in their names, are the prime time to feed on oysters. That you don't want to eat oysters and ice cream at the same meal, because the ice cream will turn the oysters into stone in your stomach.

It's been another devastating oyster season for Chesapeake Bay watermen. As one scientist succinctly noted, "It was lousy." This year's harvest appears to be well below last year's 418,000 bushels, which is 60 percent less than 10 years ago. The situation in Virginia waters is even worse.What's happened to oystering? Where have all the oysters gone? Everyone agrees that a big part of the decline is the continuing presence of two parasitic diseases, MSX and Dermo, that don't pose any danger to humans but are deadly to oysters.

NORMANDY, France -- We're nearly a mile offshore, working some of Europe's richest oyster beds. A nasty storm brews out on the Atlantic, but the captain is not perturbed. The storm will scarcely rock his vessel, a large diesel farm tractor.We need only heed the return of the tide, which can fall and rise as much as 50 feet, exposing and re-flooding miles of firm, sandy ocean bottom with astonishing rapidity. For safety, we always keep other tractors of the "fleet" in sight, and carry a sturdy tow cable.

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -- Virginia Marine Resources Commission chief William A. Pruitt has rescinded a commission decision allowing scientists to place Japanese oysters in the York River to see whether they resist MSX, a disease that has killed countless oysters in the Chesapeake Bay.Mr. Pruitt's ruling was prompted by a recommendation by Virginia Institute of Marine Science Director Dennis L. Taylor to keep the foreign oysters out of the bay until scientists can guarantee the oysters can't successfully reproduce.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Weathered sticks peek like day-old whiskers out of the murky harbor here, not far offshore from the fuel tank farms, aging factories and highways that line the waterfront.Easy to mistake for debris, the sticks actually mark the boundaries of dozens of private shellfish beds, where acres of oysters are cultivated on the harbor bottom.From waters at the western end of Long Island Sound, Connecticut's shellfish "farmers" last year produced 800,000 bushels of oysters -- more than 10 times what Maryland and Virginia watermen took from the Chesapeake Bay.While Maryland watermen expect slim pickings again when their oyster season opens Thursday, their counterparts in Connecticut expect another bumper crop.

THE MARYLAND General Assembly recently passed legislation requiring the state Department of Natural Resources to take additional steps before allowing the introduction of Asian oysters into the Chesapeake Bay. Those steps include performing more environmental impact studies, getting a recommendation from an independent advisory panel, submitting a report to the General Assembly and holding public hearings. As laudable as is this ambitious attempt to reach a conclusive position, there's a problem.