It’s time to give our favorite bivalve the credit it deserves!
National Oyster Week comes to us August 5-11, with oyster specials and events happening around Maryland, DC, Virginia, and beyond. Dozens of restaurants are offering shucking classes, specialty recipes, and discounted prices on all your favorite menu items to get everyone eating the Bay’s hardest worker.
National Oyster Week is an effort spearheaded by the Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP), which works with the Shell Recycling Alliance to help restaurants put used oyster shells back into the Bay. One single reclaimed shell can become the home for more than 10 juvenile oysters, and to date the ORP has planted almost 230,000 bushels of recycled oyster shell on public oyster bars in Maryland.
The ORP’s work comes at a critical time, as the area’s unusually wet winter caused a lower salinity in the Bay and its tributaries. The ORP is working with watermen, the DNR, aquaculture non-profits, and others to enhance existing oyster populations, identify locations for expanding aquaculture, and develop a plan for the long-term restoration of the Bay.
And you can help by doing exactly what you love: eating oysters! And there’s no need to worry that it’s not a ‘ber’ month: the rule of thumb, which is possibly more than 4,000 years old, had more to do with inadequate refrigeration than anything else. When oysters are harvested, they’re exposed to higher heat temperatures and potentially hazardous pathogens. But with modern-day restrictions on how quickly oysters need to be refrigerated after harvesting, we’re safe to order a dozen raw without worry. Even during the hottest July on record.
To see which of your favorite restaurants are participating in National Oyster Week, and to read about the incredible efforts of the Oyster Recovery Partnership, click here.
