Pacific Oysters on the Half Shell

Washington is the leading oyster-producing state in the United States, its growing waters including Willapa Bay, Hood Canal, Samish Bay, and Puget Sound, with Oregon farms in Yaquina, Netarts, and Tillamook bays. The only oyster native to the West Coast is the small Olympia, heavily harvested from about 1850 into the early 1900s until the beds were nearly stripped. The Pacific oyster now dominant in farms was introduced from Japan in the early twentieth century, with commercial planting in Washington beginning at Samish Bay in 1919 and large-scale farming taking hold through the 1920s. Mignonette is a classic French preparation, its name from the French word for cracked pepper.

Cold, plump, and silky, each oyster carries its liquor, the seawater held in the cupped shell. The flavor is briny and mineral, shaped by the water it grew in: Hood Canal oysters lean toward clean cucumber and melon notes, while Willapa Bay runs from brine into sweetness. The tiny Olympia finishes with a coppery, metallic note all its own. The mignonette's acid brightens and cuts the brine; a squeeze of lemon does the same.

Shucking is the whole technique: the oyster is held cup-down in a folded towel, the knife worked into the hinge and twisted like a key to pop it, then run along the top shell to sever the upper adductor muscle that clamps the shells shut, and finally under the meat to free the lower adductor, all while keeping the liquor in the cup. The oysters are served raw and very cold. Raw oysters can carry Vibrio bacteria, which rise in warm water, the reason behind the old rule of eating oysters only in months with an R; the cold chain and freshness are the controls.