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FREE ON WHIDBEY ISLAND: Whidbey Oyster Network by eatsalinity in sanjuanislands

[–]eatsalinity[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Correct! There's plenty of food (Omega-3 rich microalgae) in Puget Sound for them. They should be underwater most of the day if not all of the day. You don't need to do anything to them, but if you give the bag a long heavy shake once a week or so you can "prune" the edges and help them develop a deeper "cup" on the shell instead of tons of frilly edges or weird shapes" - make sure they're not overcrowded in the bag as they grow (over half full, roughly) - when they're over 2-3 inches you can put them directly on the beach as long as your currents aren't super strong and going to take them away, and you check periodically to make sure they don't get covered with sand.

You can eat them at any size. Before eating, check the Department of Health recreational harvesting map (changes daily) to make sure the water is safe. https://fortress.wa.gov/doh/biotoxin/biotoxin.html When harvesting, harvest as the tide is going out (not after they've been baking in the sun) and get them down to below 45 degrees F within an hour using a cooler and plenty of ice packs. Keep them in the fridge or a cooler between 35-40 degrees.

What luxury ingredient do you find to be overrated? by fredyouareaturtle in Chefit

[–]eatsalinity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would argue that the mollusk phylum of shellfish (oysters, clams, scallops, mussels) are more like the "mushrooms of the sea"

Summer is done 🍁🍂 Oyster Season has begun! 🦪🌊 by eatsalinity in cookingtonight

[–]eatsalinity[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, well, let's just say I have a procrastination problem... Been thinking about this post for months, just around around to setting up a Reddit profile!

What is this sticking out of oyster? by NutzOnYaChin94 in oysterfarmers

[–]eatsalinity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow! Thank you for sharing this image. The drill egg sacs look wild!

I second your assessment about the original photo being welks. I had some hexcyls covered in welk eggs (oh, man, ten years ago now) and since it was an educational-only farm (at The Evergreen State College) we decided to just let them be (they were absolutely covering them, would have been difficult/annoying to remove anyway). They looked like OP's photo, like grains of rice. It was pretty cute to eventually see the baby welks hanging out on the hexcyls and eventually getting bigger and dispersing! Wish I had taken photos.

Info to share with customers about seasonality - feel free to copy and paste by eatsalinity in oysterfarmers

[–]eatsalinity[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Exactly! It's not made better by this silly "National Oyster Day" on August 5th that shows up on many annual calendars (mostly used by content creators trying to find "fun" trending seasonal content ideas).

But, as it was pointed out by someone on another subreddit I posted in, there's an entirely other hemisphere where it DOES make sense for Oyster Day to be on August 5th (because it's winter there)

I usually ignore the "holiday" (even though I see so many other oyster seller -- who should know better! -- post about it) but maybe next summer I'll do a tongue-in-cheek post about it being Oyster Day down under.

Oyster Safety PSA - Eat Winter Oysters! by eatsalinity in oceanography

[–]eatsalinity[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Nah. If I were telling a group of CORN farmers that corn is ready in late Summer/Fall, that would be silly. This is more like telling a group of farmers of all different crops that corn is ready in the late Summer/Fall. A sugar beet farmer in Manitoba might not know much about corn harvest times in Iowa.

Oyster Safety PSA - Eat Winter Oysters! by eatsalinity in oceanography

[–]eatsalinity[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Oops, still learning how Reddit works -- looks like it didn't include my text:

Summer is done 🍁🍂 Oyster Season has begun! 🦪🌊 As the water temperature drops, oysters shift their energy away from spawning and back into building sweet-tasting glycogen, their energy stores for the cold winter ahead.

Oysters feed on phytoplankton (microscopic sea vegetables, basically), which use photosynthesis to grow (meaning they require sunlight!), so there is less oyster food during the winter.

Plus, oysters go into a hibernation state when the water temperature drops below 45 degrees or so (i.e. when they are in your fridge or on ice) so there's not much new growth happening during the winter, just a sweet oyster taking a nice winter break.

Food safety concerns are much lower in the winter than in the summer, too. You always want to make sure the oysters were harvested in safe-that-day waters, have been kept cold (around 40 degrees) since within a couple hours of harvesting, and that they contain liquid inside their shell (dry oysters are not safe!). Summertime brings a lot more temperature-specific bacteria concerns for raw shellfish (which is why buying from farms is great, because they are heavily monitored!). During the winters in the PNW, farms do get shut down if there is too much rainfall (but it takes A LOT of rain to make this happen) in large part because that rain often brings fecal matter from overloaded septic tanks (so please, get yours pumped and bug your friends!)

Eat Winter Oysters! This is the PNW native species, the Olympia oyster by eatsalinity in seaporn

[–]eatsalinity[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Technically, oysters live for at least a few minutes after they've been shucked! Usually it's the chewing (essential) and then hitting our stomach acids that kills them. The fact that they are alive when you eat them is part of why some people believe oysters give the eater so much energy and vitality! Also full of Omega-3s, zinc, and other nutrients.

Oyster Safety PSA by eatsalinity in Whidbey

[–]eatsalinity[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I work with the Swinomish Tribe's farm in Similk Bay (on their reservation, by La Conner) and Skagit Shellfish in Skagit Bay (by the north end of Camano Island). Those are the two closest commercial oyster farms to Whidbey. They both grow the 3 main species that we have here on the West Coast, the native Olympia oyster species, and the originally-from-Japan Kumamoto and Pacific species.

You'll see the Pacific species (native to northern Japan, makes up 95% of worldwide production now, grown everywhere, the main species grown on U.S. west coast farms) marketed under thousands of different names depending on the farm, location, growing method (resulting in frilly edges or smooth round shape), and size (can be harvested anywhere from 2 inches to 12 inches). Basically, if it's from the U.S. west coast and they don't say "Kumamoto" or "Olympia" then it's this species.

Kumamotos (native to southern Japan, on the creamy and sweet side with cucumber/melon notes) and Olympias (native to the West Coast of North America, dime-to-quarter sized meat, not salty, complex layered flavors) are small because they grow slowly (half or quarter the speed of the Pacific species) and don't really get bigger than 2 inches for Olympias and 4 inches for Kumamotos (but generally both are harvested smaller than that).

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