SHELL SHOCK
The Humble Oyster
REELING AFTER OIL SPILLS, FRESHWATER INFILTRATION, A PANDEMIC, AND HURRICANE SEASON, THE OYSTER INDUSTRY REMAINS RESLIENT Story and photos by Jason Vowell
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ulling into a muddy boat launch on a cold January morning, I looked out across the calm waters to a small island about a quarter mile offshore. Jutting out of the murky Caminada Bay are white poles that mark the floating oyster cages owned by Scott Maurer of Louisiana Oyster Company. I stepped around twisted and broken equipment, my boots crunching against the oyster shells scattered in every direction. “This is still the fallout,” Maurer told me as he scanned the gear. “You can still see the tangle of stuff. It’s everywhere. There might be a thousand oyster cages here.” Seven hurricanes. Five evacuations. A global pandemic. What Maurer had hoped would be a break-out year for his oyster business ended up being more of a break down. Hurricane Zeta, the sixth storm to make landfall in Louisiana in 2020, came right up through the oyster farms of Grand Isle and swept many of them out to sea. “I’m not naive. You know as an oyster farmer in the Gulf that it’s going to happen at some point,” Maurer told me. “But what made this so heartbreaking is that it all happened on top of the pandemic.”
Before March of 2020, one hundred percent of Maurer’s oyster sales were wholesale: from the water, to the distributers and the chefs, and finally the customer’s plate. In that order. “When COVID hit, and all of the restaurants started shutting down, it changed the game completely. And of course, it happened to coincide with a time on the farm where I had an abundance of oysters ready to be harvested.” As statewide mandates swept across cities in an effort to curve the spread
and a shortage of restaurants to deliver them to? For Maurer a solution came in the form of a very unexpected oyster dish: pizza. “I met chefs Michael and Christopher Ball through a surf club in Grand Isle. They were just starting a pizza pop-up in New Orleans called Yin Yang Pie. We went out on the farm, harvested some oysters, and in a stroke of genius they came up with the char-grilled oyster pizza. They brought it back to their pop-up at Zony Mash Brewery, and it just exploded from
“A GOOD OYSTER IS LIKE KISSING THE OCEAN ON THE MOUTH. THAT’S WHAT THEY ARE: A SNAP SHOT OF WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE OCEAN AT THE TIME THAT IT IS HARVESTED. ONCE IT CLOSES ITS SHELL, THE SHUTTER DROPS. IT IS A DELICIOUS PICTURE OF WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE ENVIRONMENT AT THAT MOMENT.” of the virus, restaurants were forced to shutter or drastically reduce occupancy. This left Maurer, and the entire oyster industry, in a serious predicament. What do you do when you have millions of oysters ready to be pulled from the water, sorted, washed, packed, and delivered,
there. It was so popular they started inviting me to shuck oysters with them.” And that’s how Maurer survived: shucking oysters on street corners, at breweries, pop-up markets, and even backyards. “It was the one bright spot in all of this. Getting to see the customers
enjoy my oysters. To put a freshly shucked one right into someone’s hand and see them eat it. They get wide-eyed,” Maurer said. “And when they finish, they always say it is one of the best oysters they have ever eaten.” When the time came for chefs to cautiously re-open their doors, Maurer was ready. He started fronting oysters to restaurants who were afraid they wouldn’t be able stay open through the end of the month due to confusing and constantly changing guidelines. “These chefs were struggling to find a foothold, and I had a great product to get people in the door.” Maurer said. “A lot of positive came out of this symbiotic relationship formed between us. These chefs are always the ones who step up and help the community. I didn’t want to ask them for help, because I knew they were hurting too. We had to find a way to help each other. ” It was a gamble, but with storms brewing in the Gulf, Maurer had no choice but to harvest as many oysters as he could anyway. Newly opened boutique oyster spots like Side Car, and the wildly innovative Japanese restaurant Yo Nashi put Maurer’s oysters on their menus. He // M A R 2 1
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