Food
and cooking articles and information:
Kumamoto
Oyster
 What
is a Kumamoto? Kumamoto is the name of the large bay
on the southern most Island of Japan, Kyushu. For some
reason, a different species developed there than the
most abundant oyster found in Japan, the northern Japanese
oyster, Crassostrea gigas. The Latin name for this unique
oyster is Crassostrea sikamea, now commonly referred
to as the Kumamoto Oyster.
How
did the Kumamoto become so popular in the USA? About
fifty years ago the oyster growers in Humboldt Bay California
thought they had come up with the solution to the summer
oyster problem.
The
west coast oyster industry had been importing oysters
from Japan since before World War II and only stopped
for the years during the war. The oysters grown on the
West coast from Japanese seed were used for shucking
and found their way on the supermarket shelves as fresh-shucked
oysters in the jar or in cans of oyster chowder. To
have a good quality shucked oyster, it must be firm
and fat and not all soft and mushy as they get during
the summer when readying for spawning.
As
soon as the big one was dropped, those oystermen where
booking flights over to visit their old oyster buddies
in Japan. The Oyster men in California knew about this
beautiful, plump, sweet oyster located down south in
Kumamoto and thought that in the cold water of Humboldt
Bay that those warm water Kumamoto’s would never
get all soft and mushy for spawning. The warm water
is what makes the oysters sexy. Keep them in cold water
and they never get in the mood. So they oyster boys
in Humboldt Bay decided to bring over a few million
Kumamoto Seed to see how they would do. For many years
after that, the Kumamotos were cultured in Humboldt
Bay and wound up in oyster chowder and on supermarket
selves.
Then
the Oystermen got really wise and commissioned the first
successful, commercial oyster hatchery in the USA, Pigeon
Point Shellfish to start raising these Kumamoto seed
for them. This way they wouldn’t have to make those
long trips to Japan every year and eat all that raw
fish. Years went by. Then the market for shucked oysters
became more competitive, costs of growing and shucking
oysters increased. Those slow growing, difficult Kumamotos
were forgotten about. Until the early eighties... In
1982 when I was first starting Marinelli Shellfish,
I was looking for new and exciting oysters to sell.
Since I had worked at Pigeon Point for a number of years,
I knew all the oyster farms. I called up my buddies
in Humboldt Bay and spoke with the chief oysterman up
there, Twig LaBranche (that’s his real name…).
I asked Twig about all that Kumamoto seed we had been
sending him for years. He had millions of these Kumamotos
on his beds and nowhere to sell them. They had become
just too expensive and slow growing for him to do anything
with. Enter the Kumamoto half shell oyster. The initial
reaction in San Francisco where I first marketed the
Kumamoto was, “sorry kid, you’ll never sell
them, too small…” Not discouraged I went door
to door and bypassed those stodgy fish wholesalers.
When restaurants like Chez Panisse, Fourth Street Grill
and Zuni café started featuring my Kumamotos I knew
I had a hit.
Now
oyster farms from California to Washington are growing
the Kumamoto oyster, but the BEST still come from Humboldt
Bay. Twig La Branche has long retired but even more
disturbing is that the Kumamoto oyster is now extinct
in Kumamoto Bay. There are no indigenous Kumamotos left.
Pollution has killed them off. The Japanese had too
realized that the Kumamoto was very expensive to grow.
The Northern cousin, the gigas was much easier and profitable
and no efforts were made to protect the Kumamoto species.
Now Kumamoto seed is like gold, with oyster farms up
and down the coast fighting over it. The Kumamoto oyster
has now become a rare specimen and a reminder of man’s
folly in the oceans.
Bill
Marinelli is known throughout Asia as the “Oyster
King”. A Marine biologist who became a fish monger,
he has been distributing live shellfish and fresh fish
around the USA and Asia since 1982
This
article was supplied by www.GlobalChefs.com
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