Recently, I came across a book* of oyster recipes—variations on raw, though elegant, entrees—and started thinking about the oyster roasts on Edisto Island. There is generally something to eat besides oysters, but oysters are the prime reason for standing around in South Carolina’s semi-cold, wintery, north wind with a bunch of shivering fellow oyster fans.  Side dishes consist of venison chili, maybe, or a soup of some kind and a dip. There are always crackers—Saltines are the norm—and something sweet for after.

The oysters in this part of the world are smallish. A body can consume many, many oysters and have lots of room left. There are stories about oyster roasts in the 1800s whereat folk had to be careful not to eat too many, because they were so filling and capacity had to be reserved for other courses. Today’s oysters, while small, are just as salty as were their more heroically sized forbearers. Beer is a good thirst quencher for these feeds.

The roasts are often quite spur-of-the-moment, although, like barbeques, they can be long-planned and much-anticipated events. In their simplest form, they consist of nothing more than oysters, Tabasco sauce, cocktail sauce, melted butter, Saltines, beer and wine, and lots of paper towels. The oysters are served hot, and if roasted carefully and correctly, they remain raw but open easily at the table. The oysters are placed in a basket over boiling water, and the heat causes them to begin to open. They are quickly removed from the steamer and dumped onto 4’ x 8’ plywood tables with holes cut in the middle, through which the eaters toss the shells into barrels below. As the piles of hot oysters are eaten, new piles are added. It isn’t unusual to see a kid of seven or eight alongside an elder some ten or twelve times as old sucking down dozens of oysters over ten or twenty minutes and then moving away from the table to make room for other eaters.  You might eat a couple of dozen, rotate away for a quarter of an hour or so, and then rotate back in for another couple of dozen. This can go on all afternoon.  

The more elaborate oyster roasts are—well, I wouldn’t know. I haven’t ever been to a fancy oyster roast, and ‘fancy oyster roast’ is probably an oxymoron. Eaters might dress better, and there could be a wind-break involved, but part of the scene is eating raw or semi-raw natural food right out of the water in primitive conditions, outside. Maybe table clothes would be involved and the oyster knives wouldn’t have any visible rust.

There is a trick to serving oysters in this manner. It’s easy to steam them too long, until they not only open but take on the texture of rubber bands and shrink to little tiny remnants of their natural selves. They want to stay in the ‘roaster’ just long enough to open and be manageable for a person equipped with either an oyster knife or a large nail. Both utensils work about equally well.

The ‘roaster’ consists of a large covered vessel containing a basket of some kind over rapidly boiling water. The old-style roast came closer to the idea of roasting, but was still steaming. A fire pit would be built and, over the fire, a piece of flat sheet metal would be placed. Oysters would be dumped onto the hot sheet metal and covered with wet burlap bags, until they began to open. Servers would use a scoop shovel to remove the oysters from the griddle and distribute them around to the various eating stations. I haven’t seen this done in many years, and, in fact, it is only a childhood memory. It’s sloppy, and you can just as easily overcook the shellfish this way as over boiling water. It’s probably a bit slower, too.

My favorite roasts happen on the bluffs along St. Pierre’s Creek. Even in February, there can be no-see-ums. So the wind isn’t a bad thing if you are dressed for it and have come from the frozen north to spend a few days in the relative warmth of the Sea Islands.  The wind is coldest and strongest when it comes out of the north across the river and marshes, with nothing to break it up or slow it down. It’s warmer when it comes from the southeast where the ocean is. These feeds usually happen in the afternoon, so people can use daylight to see what they are doing with their oysters, but this isn’t necessarily regulation; roasts happen in the evening, too.

The shells are always saved. They use to be smashed and used for paving roads and paths and that still happens, sometimes; but, mostly, they are taken to a collection point, and the state fisheries department distributes them around to help newly seeded areas get established. Oysters attach themselves more readily to old oyster shells—and other living oysters—than most anything else. It is impermissible to toss used paper towels into the shell barrel, as they become litter when the shells are distributed. Scorn and reproach are heaped upon those breaking this PT rule.

Although it is conceivably possible to pick your own oysters, this isn’t often done. Most people get them from one of the few oyster pickers still harvesting from certified clean areas, and these areas have shrunk over the years. The oysters are delivered in big, plastic, burlap-type, bushel bags. The last time I was present for a delivery, the oysters were in these bags, in the boat used to pick them, being towed behind the picker’s pickup. He dropped them off on the way home from the banks.  Pretty fresh.



*This book, Oysters, A Culinary Celebration - by Joan Reardon and Ruth Ebling, has a recipe that comes extremely close to the oyster stew made at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station in New York City. There is a Grand Central Oyster Bar cookbook and I have made the stew in it and IT ISN’T the same as what one is given sitting at the bar. This recipe is that good and I will be posting it soon.