Celebrate the Oyster by Sean Hartley, Palace Kitchen Chef
Inspiration comes at the intersection of the right thing at the right time. A friend gave me a copy of the book The Big Oyster, by Mark Kurlansky, a while ago. It’s been out several years, but in the middle of winter it turns out to the be the perfect fodder for the Palace menu. Fresh seafood is few and far between in the gray months, especially while relying principally on things caught or harvested on the West coast. From the Puget Sound, shellfish is one of the last remaining seafoods available from what used to be a much wider harvest.
My very Northwest centric view of us as the king of the oyster world is all wrong. Guess I’ve been listening to the boys from Penn Cove shellfish too much. The Big Oyster tells the story of the New York oyster culture and a society that at its height produced 700 million oysters a year at the turn of the century, consumed by a population of about 5 million. Not just the luxury of the rich, oysters were consumed by folks from all walks of life, in every conceivable preparation, from carts, cellar restaurants, and posh mansions.
Today, New York is slowly reviving an oyster industry ruined by pollution and overconsumption (see this article in the New York Times). In the Northwest, we are lucky to have access to great oysters from our own backyard: Olympias, Virginicas, Pacifics– raw, fried, pickled, grilled, and stewed. Seems like a great time to celebrate the oyster.
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