The Oysters And Their Merroir

 If you think oysters are just oysters, think again. They are as complex as wine, and even mirror the drinks' many different flavors and subtleties. These are not just bivalves. They're much more.

 Regular contributor Melissa Clark explored  this in yesterday's New York Times Food section. Oysters are actually filters, cleansing up to three thousand gallons of both salt and fresh water daily. Yet for centuries they have been considered both a staple as with the Indigenous Americans and a luxury as with the Europeans who settled the continent. However they're not that simple. They are a complex animal, now mostly farmed in controlled conditions, not unlike grapes meant for wine.Unlike wines there are only five kinds of them in the United States. There is the East Coast one, found in the Atlantic while the Pacific Ocean has the west Coast oyster. yet the varieties or varietels are just like wine. An oyster raised in the warm waters off Louisiana is going to taste entirely different from one harvested from Maine's icy ocean. This is called a merroir,  a play on the french terroir, from land. Mer is from the french word for 'sea". It's the interaction of aquaculture techniques and the local merroir that creates the taste. even though the oysters from the Glidden Point Oyster farm is only one thousand feet from the Mook sea Farm, their tastes are vastly different. The Glidden Farms ones are sweet , dense and stony  while the Mook Sea Farm have a clean flavor and a rounded shell.

Sometimes the land itself can have a direct impact on the oysters flavor. At Hama Hama Company in Lilliwaup Washington,  the Pacific oysters are raised in the Hood Canal. This is nestled in an area where there are Douglas firs which drop their needles into the water. This definitely affects their taste, along with the algae and phytoplankton. Oysters aren't the only ones with a merroir. Scallops are also affected by their environment too. They also have a distinct flavors and textures.They run the gamut from soft and mild  from Cobscook Bay to funky, firmer and saltier adductors from Little Macchias Bay. This is a recent thing and it may be shortly applied to shrimp, crab and lobster too,If you plan on eating oysters for the holidays, keep in mind that they're not really good with champagne as most make them out to be. Ms. Clark  feels that raw oysters gives the bubbly a metallic taste unless they're Oysters Rockefellar.. Instead try a modestly sweet German Resiling. You can also try Sancerre, Muscadet or Chablis.

Oysters are not just oysters anymore. The same idea with scallops. They're as complex as a good wine with different flavors and sub notes. Like a good wine, they should be savored and appreciated for those unique tastes too.