Oyster Stew & Why Oysters are delicious

Oysters get their distinct, delicious flavor from the ocean. There is an etiquette for wading in a tidal basin. I learned it from oyster farmer Stewart Tweed, on the soft edge of Delaware Bay. "Step slowly," he cautioned, "that way we won't stir up the mud too much. We'll be able to see." He was wading in high rubber boots;

An oyster farm is a quiet place with a lot going on, silently. Rows of racks and bags stretch out into the bay, exposed to sun at low tide. It takes two to three years for an oyster to reach market size, time they spend contentedly filtering the briny bay. That afternoon, the oysters were blanching in the sun, which toughens their shells, explained Tweed, who knows a lot about oysters after working more than thirty years as a graduate student at Rutger's Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory and as a marine extension agent with Rutgers Cooperative Extension. He retired five years ago and is putting his experience to work as an aquaculture extension agent with the New Jersey Sea Grant Program.

Just as a fine wine demonstrates the importance of terroir, the earth that it springs from, oysters may be said to manifest aqua, elements in the marine environment that impart distinctive flavor. Famous ones -- Wellfleet, Blue Points, Kumamoto -- are known for different flavors, textures and degrees of saltiness. As we stood along the shore, Tweed expertly pried apart an oyster bound for market and let me sample it. The taste, warm from the sun, was simultaneously sweet and salty, with a creamy texture -- an exceptional, place-specific, oyster.

During the last decades of the 19th century watermen used sailing sloops and hand tongs or rakes to harvest wild oysters in the country's No. 1 fishing industry. From 1900 to 1940, Cape May Salts from southern New Jersey were shipped by boat and rail to Philadelphia and other major cities. Oyster bars were as common then as pizza parlors are today, and the now-deserted towns of Bivalve and Shellpile on the Delaware Bay were thriving ports.

The mid-1950s marked the beginning of the decline, due to pollution closings of some of the beds, the emergence of oyster-specific diseases such as MSX and Dermo, and plain overharvesting. Motor boats had replaced the sailboats and were able to go out all year long, dredging previously unreachable beds. Today, the farm-raised Cape May Salts are available year-round, thanks to modern refrigeration methods. "We sell them in Ma-r-y, June-r, Ju-r-ly, and Au-r-gust," said Tweed, dispensing the notion that oysters should only be consumed in months that have the letter R in them.

Oyster Stew Makes 4 cups
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon grated onion or shallot
1 pint oysters with liquor
1 and 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
2 tablespoons chopped parsley

In a heavy 3-quart saucepan, melt the butter and briefly sauté the onion or shallot. Add the oysters, milk, cream and salt and pepper and heat gently just until the oysters float. Overcooking will toughen them. Garnish with the chopped parley and serve with oyster crackers. [org pub Pa's Centre Daily by Anne Quinn Corr]