Other places to get oysters

Yes that's where we are now.

The impact of the oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill now soiling the Louisiana shoreline was felt far inland on Thursday as P&J Oyster Company, the country's oldest oyster processor and distributor, ceased its shucking operations. "The bottom line is that the guys that we purchase from are not working," said Sal Sunseri, referring to the oyster harvesters who've been idled by the mass closure of harvesting areas and freshwater diversions. "Today's our last day of shucking."

Sunseri, who co-owns P&J with his brother Al, said the French Quarter-based company will not shut down entirely. "We may periodically have some oysters, but it's not a continuing production," he said.

The brothers are currently looking to bring oysters in from the West Coast, a jarring turn of events for a company that has dealt exclusively in Louisiana oysters for 134 years.

I love Gulf oysters. They grow bigger, more plump, and more rich here than anywhere else in the world. I don't think there is a single more satisfying food item imaginable anywhere than fried gulf oysters. They are rich, meaty, earthy, salty, peppery, buttery, a little fishy, delicate and crispy all at the same time. Ever since the spill started I've been trying to eat as many oysters as I can get my hands on before the clock runs out on them. A few weeks ago, Ros and I went down to Acme and gorged ourselves on fried oysters, raw oysters, charbroiled oysters, and oysters soaked in vodka like these here.



Before that, I put them in a big seafood gumbo.

I made this Rockefeller style sauce over pasta which I wrote about at the beginning of May but the Yellow Blog archives are acting funny right now so I can't link you to it. Here's the picture anyway.



Last weekend I went down to the Inaugural (and possibly final) New Orleans cognitive dissonance Oyster Festival where I watched an apparently inebriated Chef Andrea Apuzzo poach a bucket full of beautiful Gulf oysters to serve with a simple olive oil and garlic sauce.



I hate to see the Gulf oyster taken from us like this. Hate to see all of these oystermen and oyster shuckers lose their jobs. I can't imagine I'll get used to eating "West Coast" oysters. They'll always taste something like bitterness to me.