This past Friday night, I was in a local restaurant serving Apalachicola oysters. Being close to the end of April, I was a little apprehensive about ordering oysters, but I knew the restaurant to have a good reputation for freshness and quality. So with worries aside, I ordered a dozen on the half shell. With the exception of one that seemed to taste a little funny, I thoroughly enjoyed the delicacy.
The wonderful thing about food from one's home is that there are so many memories and associations. To me this is "Soul food". Now, I have never harvested an oyster in my life so I can't claim to have the same experiences as those who lived by working the oyster bars. Nonetheless, I like to think that my being from North Florida gives me a unique association to oysters.
I think about Granny making oyster soup and how she revered it as a delicacy. I also remember my first job out of college at the Leon County courthouse and how Buddy Holmes would tell stories about eating oysters in the old County courthouse parking lot on payday. Then there was local woman famed for being the World's Fastest Oyster Shucker. She was featured on a TV show called "That's Incredible". I can’t remember if it was before or after her being on TV, but she worked briefly down at the bottom of the hill at Lewis Seafood.
I’ve also heard stories about how my Grandfather would gather oysters in the back waters of the bay between St Teresa and Alligator point. I only know my Grandfather through these stories, so it is through the oyster that I can imagine a man who probably shared the same feelings of being blessed to experience St Teresa and this part of the Gulf coast.
5 comments:
"The World's Fastest Oyster Shucker" was a fabulous German/French woman named Heidi Harrelson who lived and shucked oysters for a living in Apalachicola when I met her, 42 gallons of 'em a day on a good day. We opened our oyster bar at Lewiseafoods under her name, "Heidi's Oyster Bar". When she left, we renamed it the "Black Cypress Oyster Bar" after the black cypress oyster bar I built for the place, the top surface of which was a single black cypress plank 16 feet long, about 18 inches wide, and almost three inches thick. It came out of a deadhead log from the Apalachicola River. I still have the bar. The television show, "Real People", had a program on Heidi, part of which was filmed in Heidi's Oyster Bar. She went to the world oyster shucking championships in Galway, Ireland, and came in second place because she lost one of her oysters in amongst the flying shells and only shucked 49 of the required 50, but she beat everybody else by a mile on speed - at least according to her, and I believed her - if not finesse. Unfortunately for Heidi they were also interested in finesse, not one of her fortes in oyster shucking, personal relationships, or anything else I could perceive about her. I liked her a lot. We're talking ancient herstory here. Now it's Tomato Land in the Lewiseafoods building, but you can still get some Lewiseafoods there, my clams, which I grow in Alligator Harbor. I live at St. Teresa in a beach cottage my mother's father bought in 1925. I'm a clam farmer now; hard work, and somebody has to do it, but why does it have to be ME? :>) Once in a long while I get some of those Alligator Harbor oysters, too, best in the Milky Way, and I know because over the eons I've tried 'em all. Hmmm, now which is better, Alligator Harbor oysters or Alligator Harbor clams? Oysters? Or clams? Oysters? Clams? Oysters? Clams? Talk about a hard problem ... Oh well. It doesn't matter. Eat up!
Hello Mr. Lewis,
Thank you so much for the contributing comments. I must have been around 12 or 13 years old when Heidi worked at Lewiseafoods. I appreciate the correction on the television show as well.
I don't suppose there is a way to mail order some of your clams ;)
John
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