Oyster Blog — Oyster World

For the past several years oyster farmers in France have seen their oyster beds decimated by a new, more virulent strain of oyster herpes. The virus stays dormant until water temperatures get above 61 degrees Fahrenheit and then attacks oysters just as they are weakened by the effort of reproducing, killing as much as 80% of the population. Now the virus has popped up in the UK. According to this National Geographic article, the disease may have spread on oyster harvesting equipment. A less virulent strain of oyster herpes has been detected in California... but let's hope this European monster...

Whose idea was it to designate August 5th National Oyster Day? Is there an Australian prankster embedded in the Bureau of Obscure Food Holidays who's sabotaging our ability to truly celebrate our nation's most valuable bivalve? If you haven't already heard: August is an iffy month to consume raw oysters. They might make you sick, and they might be spawny.  But maybe August is a fantastic time to be an oyster? The water's warm, the sun's out, you and all your friends and neighbors are spawning, and there's less risk that you'll be harvested and eaten. Tomorrow we'll be celebrating...

Oysters are legendary aphrodisiacs, and Casanova reportedly began each day with  a couple dozen raw ones. Now, we would just write these statements off as old wives' tales propagated by oyster farmers around Valentine's Day, except that scientists have proven us wrong. It turns out that that raw oysters actually do stimulate the release of certain sexy hormones. And of course, eating them with champagne doesn't hurt much, either. If you're on the hunt for some oysters this Valentine's Day, you can always buy some from us (!) or you can hit up one of the many champagne and oyster...

From the blog Food, She Thought: I worship the oyster, but a creamy oyster grosses me out. Hamas, in my opinion, are beautiful bivalve perfection. Good for eating raw, yet substantial enough for cooking. Hama Hama Oyster with Lemon Foam

If you haven't already read Rowan Jacobsen's newest book "The Living Shore," we highly recommend that you do. An article that appeared online a couple of weeks ago picks up an idea Rowan discusses in his book, which is that oysters played a pivotal role in human evolution.  Rowan put forth the "big brain" theory, or the idea that the Omega 3 fatty acids present in shellfish are what allowed humans to develop big brains. But according to the Boing Boing article, that's not the only theory out there: Marean thinks the big brain came first. You can't just walk...