Cool June = Tasty Oysters

Jul 01, 2009

If you live on the Eastern Seaboard you know it was a demoralizing June. Rain, fog, and temperatures more appropriate to the R months. But there is a silver lining in all those clouds, and it is that we’re getting an extra month of quality oysters this year. Normally a young oyster’s thoughts turn to reproduction this time of year, as warm waters tickle its…well, whatever tickles on an oyster…but the waters of the Atlantic are staying unusually cool and the oysters are staying unusually frigid. I just tested some Cedar Islands (which are little, three-inch Moonstones) and Matunucks from Rhode Island, and they were salty and tasty, with the tannic, tea-like quality I always look for in oysters from that corner of the state. They weren’t the plump and sweet bombs of November, but they weren’t spawny at all. The best place to order these varieties is through Moonstone oysters, which handles the oysters of six top Rhode Island growers that have formed a cooperative. Get some soon, before July turns into July.

Posted in New Discoveries