Bay Weekly: Dock of the Bay

Crowned for a year, Oyster King Adelle Pierce presides over the 22nd Annual Rotary of St. Mary’s County’s Oyster Festival.
photo by Bill Lambrecht

The King’s Oyster:
Here’s the Finest Recipe in the Land

Whether to eat an oyster used to be the simplest question in Chesapeake Country. If you loved ’em, you ate ’em. If you didn’t, you didn’t.

Nowadays, it’s a question you can perplex yourself right out of oyster season debating. Should the few oysters our Bay has left be left alone to replenish the species and clean up the water? If we leave them be, might not MSX and dermo eat them before us? What’s to become of the poor waterman, himself an endangered species, if oyster lovers refuse the few bushels he scrapes up?

Ah, for the good old days, when choices were simple.

At the National Oyster Cook-Off in Leonardtown, those good old days return at least for a fall weekend each year. Not only are oysters rampant — shucked, scalded, souped, fried or jarred. There’s even a king to command that they be eaten.

It’s undeniable that Rotary of St. Mary’s County’s 2001 King Oyster is — for the second time in the venerable festival’s 22-year history — a woman. That’s certain proof the monarchy of oysterdom is enlightened. So, when King Adelle Pierce says let oyster eating begin, who dares resist her?

Certainly not the judges pledged to choose the fairest oyster dish in all the land. Obediently, we tied on our bibs and ate all that was offered.

Which was plenty, for each year the St. Mary’s festival affords oyster aspirants opportunity to claim a crown of their own.

Competing are cooks from near and far — cooks who claim Chesapeake oysters as their own as well as cooks from the flatlands, the mountains, the deserts, the far coast. All these aspirants have spent the past year dreaming of the most succulent, the most flamboyant, the most exotic, the most elaborate, the most alluring ways to gild the lily that is a Chesapeake oyster.

Their recipes have been studied, sampled and scrutinized. From the 200 submitted this year, the seafood section of Maryland Department of Agriculture selected 12 finalists.

With pots and pans and whisks, that dozen has descended on Leonardtown to vie for the championship. Now, one of the 12 will claim the grand prize. As well as honor, she or he will claim $1,000 and a silver tray for carrying home the reward.

But not until we four judges have eaten all they have to offer.

The day of the festival, oyster eating begins early. Outside the judges’ chambers, the smell of frying oil is already heavy on the clear fall air. Early-comers might down a dozen raw with their coffee.

Inside, the judges breakfast at 9am on Maryland oysters and flower petal stew, oysters and corn soup and Thai oyster chowder.

“Lovely,” says chief judge William Taylor, who has presided over the occasion for 21 years, of the category winner, Illinoisian Harry Crane’s thick cream stew strewn with nasturtiums.

We brunch on oysters in champagne sabayon with wilted spinach; oyster Wellingtons with spinach pesto and red oil; and lime-spiked fried oysters with red pepper coulis.

“This one will be hard to beat,” says Anne Mackenzie, retired food columnist for The Aegis and another 21-year judge, of the hors d’oeuvres category winner: oyster Wellingtons. We were later to learn it was the masterpiece of Terry Ann Moore of Oaklyn, New Jersey, who had last year won another first.

We lunch on skewers of flambéed oysters, squid and mushrooms; grilled oysters Athena; and touch-of-Thai grilled oysters with mango salsa.

“My, those are rich, and you can taste the feta,” says judge Betty Wrenn Day, food editor of Virginia’s Gloucester/Mathews Gazette-Journal, of outdoors and salads category winner Dawn Brown’s oysters Athena. The Baltimorean topped oysters on the half shell with garlic, shallots, spinach and pine nuts and topped it off with a Béchamel sauce.

Next we dine on mama mia oyster casserole; creamed oysters in acorn squash; and oysters in the pink.

“Even after so many oysters, these crepes are remarkably tasty,” I comment of the main-courses winner, oysters in the pink by St. Mary’s own Sally Brassfield.

From all those, we chose oyster Wellingtons as the $1,000 dish fit for a king.

Here’s how to make it yourself if you, too, find it in your heart to eat oysters this year:

The winners plus honorably mentioned recipes are assembled in an annual cookbook of 41 recipes. $4 from National Oyster Cook-Off, P.O. Box 653, DECD, Leonardtown, Maryland 20650.

— SOM

Oyster Wellingtons with Spinach Pesto and Red Oil

Sauté ^1/4C each: diced carrot, celery, onion, red bell pepper and 1oz. shredded prosciuto in 1T olive oil; add ^1/4C white wine and nearly evaporate. Season with fresh cilantro, salt and pepper
Cut 2 Pepperidge Farms Puff Pastry sheets into eight 4-inch rounds. On cookie sheet, top each round w/spoonful of sautéed veggies, ^1/8 pint drained oysters, dollop of cream cheese. Top each w/pastry circle; seal well. Brush edges, top w/beaten egg. Sprinkle lightly w/finely chopped walnuts. Bake at 375 15-20 minutes or until puffed and deep golden.
Pesto: Blend or process 1C spinach leaves; 2T chives; ^1/2t lemon rind and 1t juice; 1 clove garlic, ^1/3C walnuts, 2 T Parmesan. Drizzling in ^1/4C olive oil.
Red pepper oil: Heat ^1/2C olive oil; 3T sun-dried tomatoes, finely diced; 1T tomato paste; 1t red pepper flakes to 180 degrees. Bottle and chill at least overnight. Strain.
To serve: Drizzle red oil on a plate. Top with Wellington, pesto, fresh herbs, diced bell peppers.

Falcon Doss’ oyster corps include husband Dave Doss and father Richard Falcon.
photo by April Falcon Doss

The Winter Garden:
Plant Oysters Now for a Spring Crop

Who would’ve thought 2,000 slimy spat could be so cute?

These babies will be my charges for the next nine months as I attempt to grow spat into oysters. Their foster home will be my father’s dock.

Now, at St. Michael’s Maritime Museum, I was joining the newest generation of Maryland’s 800 oyster gardeners. In this Chesapeake Bay Foundation program, average Bay-dwellers like myself raise spat for a year, growing oysters to be transplanted to one of the Bay’s sanctuary reefs.

With 75 other novices, I was about to find out what it took to become an oyster gardener. Many, like us, had made it a family affair, with children ranging from teenagers on down to my son and a golden retriever puppy, both aged about eight weeks. Each of us had paid $75 to cover the cost of cages and spat. We considered it a small price for our own personal stake in saving the Bay.

It was $75 invested in both urgency and hope. Urgency because the Foundation’s 2001 report rates the health of the Bay’s oysters at a miserable two on a scale of 100. Hope because our amateur efforts were being bolstered by Congress’ vote this month to spend $5 million to help build oyster reefs and restock the Bay.

My own past encounters with oysters had to do with consuming rather than with replenishing. There was the sizzling oyster po’boy I’d eaten one summer, so succulent its juices dribbled from the corners of my mouth to my chin. The lusciously plump, cold oyster I’d eaten raw the very instant it had been cut from its shell, fresh off the workboat on a stunningly warm afternoon.

But I’d read stories about Captain John Smith’s arrival in this Great Shellfish Bay. Its rivers were rendered non-navigable by giant oyster bars. Each oyster on those bars filtered 50 gallons of water per day, leaving the Bay’s waters so clean and clear that mariners could see all the way to the bottom.

Those stories were now coming to life for me as I learned that our local native species, the crassostrea virginica, grows up to eight inches long. Eight inches? I thought. I’ve no more seen an eight-inch oyster than I’ve caught an eight-inch blue crab in the pots we hang off the family’s dock. Sadly, I suspect those mammoth shellfish where phenomena of the past.

For our cloistered oysters to stand a chance of regaining those huge lengths, we had to build cages to protect them, and that construction was a central part of today’s mission. We had two options: a single large PVC-rimmed float or four wire mesh contraptions that look a bit like small crab pots.

Feeling handy enough for a do-it-yourself show, I bent wire mesh bare-handed, secured my seams with hog clips, and proudly carried my oysters’ new homes to the car along with two bags of shell, spat, and muck that had to be planted by 5pm.

Our cargo of 60 pounds of gunky oyster shells and spat are now spread inside their cages, safely tucked away below mean low tide for the long winter, when it will be my job to keep them safe from the ravages of flatworms and freezing air. Every so often, I’ll rattle their cages, to loosen any sediment clogging them and to keep the oysters from growing embedded in the wire.

And, when nobody’s looking, like any proud mother, I’ll haul them up just to say hi and imagine their future.

— April Falcon Doss

Once again, Annapolis is playing Santa, tying up its meters in bags and bows as the city’s gift to shoppers who, they hope, will say thanks by buying their gifts from downtown merchants.
Starting November 23, the day after Thanksgiving, and running through January 2, 2002, Annapolis treats visitors to free parking. Bagged and bowed meter heads dot City Dock, Market Space, Main Street, Francis Street, West Street, Maryland Avenue, Prince George Street and the Donner lot by Fawcett’s on Compromise Street.

Most meters have a two-hour limit, and some are 15- to 30-minute gifts. Should your stay run long or the meters be occupied, the city runs a shuttle from Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium to downtown, charging 75¢ for the service.

Also hoping the gift of its Park and Shop program will lure you downtown is the Annapolis Business Association. Patronize a participating merchant and get Hillman or Gotts Court parking garage tickets validated for up to four hours of free parking.

— Mark Burns