It’s peak season for B.C. oysters

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Consider the oyster, one of the world’s most perfect foods.

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“Oysters are sustainably farmed, they are really good for you, and they are delicious,” says Malindi Taylor, co-owner of Fanny Bay Oysters. “They are mutually beneficial for the environment they are in. It’s restorative aquaculture, plus they taste great.”

Oysters are among the humblest and simplest of foodstuffs — and at the same time, the most luxurious and refined. B.C. produces some of the world’s very best, farmed in the pristine waters of Baynes Sound, around the Discovery Islands and off Vancouver Island’s west coast.

But this spring — which is typically peak season for local bivalves — it was hard to find B.C. oysters at some of our favourite restaurants. We couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to them.

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Turns out, quite a lot.

“That’s the thing that keeps me up at night,” says Nico Prins, executive director of the B.C. Shellfish Growers Association. “It’s just so complex.”

Aside from the global pandemic, everything from climate change to a crippling labour shortage to a recent norovirus outbreak has affected B.C. oysters.

“Every year has its own challenges,” Taylor says, “but post COVID, this wasn’t what we were expecting.”

A bite of the sea

Oysters can be grilled, baked, pan-fried or simmered in a chowder, but aficionados will tell you that they’re best enjoyed raw on the half shell. Sweetly briny, each freshly shucked oyster is like a tender bite of the sea.

It’s romantic, but it’s also risky.

“If you’re consuming a raw protein, there is always a risk of getting sick,” says Prins. “Me, I’m happy to take the risk of consuming aquaculture seafood.”

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Oysters are native to this coast, but the ones we eat today aren’t. The native Olympia oysters were all but wiped out over the last century, replaced by the Pacific oyster, which was introduced from Japan specifically for aquaculture in Canada starting in the 1920s.

Modern shellfish aquaculture expanded rapidly here in the 1980s. But for thousands of years before that, Indigenous Peoples were farming and harvesting shellfish in clam gardens, terraced beaches protected by rock walls built in the intertidal zones of what is now B.C. and Washington state.

Today, farmed oysters are Canada’s second most valuable shellfish aquaculture species, after mussels, and B.C. is the country’s leading oyster-producing province. But, because the market is almost entirely dependent on restaurants, sales plummeted when so many closed during COVID-19, with receipts down from almost $18 million in 2019 to just over $13 million in 2020, according to a 2022 Agriservice B.C. report.

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“The shellfish industry was in a pretty precarious position even before COVID happened,” Prins says. “And now that COVID’s over and we can catch a break, we had an eight-week norovirus closure.”

‘A lot of challenges’

That norovirus outbreak was limited to a dozen or so of the 180 farms in Baynes Sound near Comox on the Island, but it tainted all of B.C.’s 500 or so farms by association.

Prins estimates that the resulting closure cost the industry 80 per cent of its prime selling season. (Farmers often choose not harvest in summer, which is spawning season, when the quality of the product declines.) The ban was only lifted at the end of May, barely in time for last weekend’s B.C. Seafood Festival in Comox.

But before that, and even before COVID, there were serious factors affecting the industry. Among the biggest is labour, and not just a workforce shortage. A bigger problem is that so many operators are ready to retire, with no one prepared to step in and replace them.

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“The backbone of the industry has been these Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants who are all in their 60s and 70s now. And their kids have no real desire to take over the family business,” Prins says. “The labour shortage is a massive part of the problem the industry is facing. You struggle to find people to work for you at the wages you can afford.”

As Taylor, whose family began farming shellfish in 1890 in Puget Sound, says: “It just doubles down and makes the industry a hard place to work sometimes.”

Then there is climate change. Taylor notes that about 15 years ago oyster farmers experienced a major die-off due to increased acidification that resulted from warming waters. The entire industry adapted, by farming in deeper, colder waters, for instance, or breeding heat-resistant stock.

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“Shellfish farmers have been an alarm ringer for climate change for a long time,” she says.

Even so, Prins says: “The last five, six years the heart of the industry around Baynes Sound has been struggling with oyster mortality in summer.”

That was especially true in 2021, when an estimated one billion sea creatures baked to death under a heat dome that sent temperatures on the B.C. coast soaring to 50 C.

A human impact issue

Then norovirus hit, just as the industry was about to enjoy its busiest, most lucrative spring season in three years.

Norovirus is a highly contagious disease that causes vomiting, diarrhea and stomach cramps. It’s hard to trace and easy to spread. A few tiny molecules can cause a major outbreak, often by undercooked animal proteins, including raw oysters.

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That’s why the B.C. Centre for Disease Control advises consumers to cook oysters to an internal temperature of 90 C for 90 seconds; in the U.S., the recommendation is 63 C for 15 seconds.

Oysters may get the blame for norovirus, but the real culprit is always humans, specifically, human waste. “It’s an environmental problem, it’s not an oyster problem. It’s a human impact issue,” Taylor says. “As farmers, we completely rely on clean water to be able to do our job.”

The waters oysters are raised in are rigorously tested for bacteria, viruses, algae and pollutants. This spring, Taylor says, “was a little bit of an anomaly in that all the test results were coming back clean, and then there were a few cases of norovirus.”

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“A few” quickly spread to more than 400 in the U.S. and Canada.

No one is sure where the contamination originated. It could have been waste improperly dumped by a herring boat, a leak from an aging septic field or overflow from a wastewater treatment facility built to handle a much smaller population.

Whatever the source, as Prins says, “It’s just going one way and that’s toward the ocean.”

And it’s only going to get worse. The Comox Valley is facing a massive development boom, including a planned 3,000-unit community at Union Bay, just 10 kilometres from Fanny Bay. That’s why Prins feels that government needs to step in now to increase testing, inspections and, if necessary, fines for polluters.

“The long-term goal is to have a pristine environment,” he says. “We’ve got a responsibility to put out a safe product and a good quality product, but if some outside contamination ends up in your product, there’s nothing you can do.”

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Thumbs-up for Baynes Sound

The frustrating thing for growers is that they know just how meticulous and careful they are.

“I can’t reiterate enough how stringently oyster farms are regulated,” Taylor says.

They’re overseen by, among others: Environment Canada and the Fisheries Department, which monitor, classify, test and protect the waters in which shellfish grow; and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which inspects processing plants and ensures site-specific quality controls are in place.

“Farmed shellfish is one of the safest food commodities out there because of all the testing that goes into it,” Prins says.

Besides, he notes that many growers will proactively pull their product from the market if there is even the faintest rumour of contamination. Having people get sick, he notes, “is just not a good business model.”

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For now at least, B.C. oysters are back. They’re safe, especially if you cook them. They’re as delicious as ever. They’re filled with minerals, including zinc, which is why they’re believed to be an aphrodisiac. They’re sustainable, and they support hundreds of B.C. farming families.

As Taylor says, “They have given the thumbs-up, all go for Baynes Sound oysters.”

And you should, too.

Recipe: Oysters Rockefeller

This rich dish was created in 1889 at Antoine’s restaurant in New Orleans and named for John D. Rockefeller, then the wealthiest man in the U.S. Here is Fanny Bay Oysters’ Chef Tommy Shorthouse’s take on the classic:

1 dozen Fanny Bay small or medium-sized oysters in shell

Topping:

1 tbsp (15 mL) butter

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2 tbsp (30 mL) olive oil

1/3 fennel bulb, diced small

1 celery stalk, diced small

2 large shallots, diced small

3 cloves garlic, diced small

1 fl oz (30 mL) white wine

Salt and pepper to taste

Juice and grate zest from half a lemon

2 cups (500 mL) spinach leaves, packed firmly

Hollandaise sauce:

3 egg yolks

1 1/2 tsp (7.5 mL) white wine vinegar

1 cup (250 mL) clarified butter

Salt to taste

Worcestershire sauce to taste

Tabasco sauce to taste

Juice from half a lemon

Garnish: Old Bay Seasoning

Method

Topping:

In a sauté pan add butter and olive oil on medium heat. When the butter has melted, add small-diced fennel, celery, shallots and garlic, and cook until tender.

Add the white wine and reduce until nearly evaporated. Season with a pinch of salt, pepper, lemon and its zest, then remove from heat to cool.

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Prepare an ice bath. Bring a pot of water to simmer and blanch spinach for 5 to 7 seconds, then immediately remove and plunge into the ice bath to stop the cooking

Remove spinach from ice water, drain and squeezing to remove as much liquid as possible.

Transfer the spinach and cooled fennel/celery mixture to a food processor and blitz until finely chopped. Set aside until you’re ready to make the Rockefeller.

Oysters:

Preheat oven to 375 F and line a baking sheet with crumpled foil or sock salt (to hold the shells in place and stop them from tipping over.

Shuck the oysters and, leaving them inside the half shell, place them on the prepared baking sheet. Spread the topping mixture evenly across the top of the oysters and bake them for 12 minutes or until bubbling.

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Hollandaise sauce:

While the oysters are baking, make the hollandaise sauce.

Prepare a double boiler. Bring a medium-sized pot filled 2 to 3 inches deep with water to a simmer. Place a medium-sized metal bowl over the pot and add the egg yolks and vinegar.

Working quickly, whisk to a thick, ribbony consistency, being careful not to let the eggs scramble. Continue whisking while slowly adding in the warmed clarified butter, whisking until the sauce is thick, rich and creamy.

Season with a pinch of salt, a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco and fresh lemon juice.

Remove oysters from the oven and top with hollandaise sauce and a light sprinkle of Old Bay Seasoning. Serve immediately.

Pro tip: If you have a kitchen torch you can also lightly caramelize the top of the Rockefeller.

Serves 4.