At the Foodways Texas Gulf symposium P.J. Stoops spoke at a bycatch panel. He explained that somebody is interested in eating nearly everything caught in a fishing boat. For lunch, Chris Shepherd demonstrated the point by serving the sea snails variously known as “oyster drills, biganos,” or “whelks.” Shepherd boiled these in crawfish boil for an hour and a half. They were nice and tender with a flavor not all that different from escargot. I would have liked them in garlic butter sauce–but I applaud Shepherd for allowing us to taste them unadorned first. To eat them, you pull the sea snail out of the shell with a nail and then peel off the tough foot.

read more Bycatch of the Day: Texas Whelks »

At the time of the Civil War, oysters from Pepper Grove Reef in East Galveston Bay were very popular in oyster bars. So were the oysters from Lady’s Pass and several other spots. Galveston Bay oysters were always identified by place name back in the late 1800s.

read more The New Gulf Oyster Bar »

For many years, Texas oysters have been sold as a commodity product–all of them dumped into the same shucker’s pile as it were.

Meanwhile, oysters from the Pacific Northwest, Cape Cod and Canada (as well as England and France) are marketed by place names. Northern oyster bars like Grand Central Oyster Bar offer consumers as many as 32 oysters to choose from.

So why aren’t Texas oysters sold by place names? Well it turns out they were…in the late 1800s. In a few weeks, at the Foodways Texas symposium on Saturday February 26, you will be able to taste Texas oysters from 6 of those famous old reefs side by side. This is probably the first time in a hundred years that Pepper Grove oysters, once the most famous in Galveston Bay, will be offered by their place name.

read more An Historic Oyster Tasting »