ML - Michigan Avenue

2013 - Issue 1 - Winter

Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY JUPITER IMAGES/THINKSTOCK B y all accounts, a love affair with oysters has Chicagoans bewitched. These succulent bivalves in all their glorious variety are being shipped our way from around the globe. They are slurped in intimate hot spots all over town and crown teeming shellfish towers topping out at $165. The boom encompasses glittering palaces of gustatory pleasure, French restaurants, stylish independents, gastropubs, posh steakhouses, and even a "shack." Third Coast, indeed. The Wall Street Journal reported in November 2012 that even just from the Chesapeake Bay, "the explosion of interest has been dramatic: Over the past five years, the number of oysters farmed in the region jumped from 5 to 23 million annually." Tim Parsons, vice president of Ballard Fish & Oyster Company in Chincoteague, Virginia, says, "The number of Chicago restaurants serving oysters now versus four years ago is off the charts. We ourselves have experienced over 1,000 percent growth in the last two years." Steve LaHaie, senior vice president of Shaw's Crab House has had a frontrow seat to local oyster consumption for 27 years. "From when we opened, we're probably selling 10 times as many oysters. We have so much more variety, and we market them more now. The number of growers has just exploded; my buyers are bringing in new oysters I've never even heard of. It's astonishing." While seemingly a recent phenomenon, the oyster trend is actually history repeating itself, according to lifelong seafood scholar and "oyster guru" Jon Rowley. While consulting to Shaw's in the mid-'80s, Rowley visited the Chicago Historical Society "to research old food ways in the city" and hit the jackpot. "Chicago had been a huge oyster town, with big multilevel oyster houses. They would have a dance hall, lunch room, formal dining, and tap rooms in one huge building," Rowley recalls. "Delivered by sleigh from New Haven, the first fresh oysters in Chicago were served in 1837 at the Lake House Hotel, where the Wrigley Building now stands." This white tablecloth establishment was our city's first foray into fine dining and offered these East Coast imports to their well-heeled clientele, which spurred Chicago's earliest love affair with the oyster. Peaking in the Gilded Age of the 1890s and waning with Prohibition, oyster consumption was plentiful in old Chicago. Adds Rowley, "They also served oysters in ice cream parlors because they had all that ice." During the culinarily adventurous '80s, oyster early-adopter Michael Kornick started serving shellfish towers at Eccentric in 1989. The restaurant had a dedicated raw bar setup, "which at the time no one had seen before," he recalls. These days, at Kornick's namesake restaurant, MK, oyster sales have increased "hugely" in the past three to four years. "Because so many other restaurants are serving oysters, we get more young people celebrating over them and requesting them for private dining. The more restaurants that serve them, the better for all of us." Observes Publican partner/executive chef Paul Kahan, "Now you can get anything from anywhere in a day," so his eight to 12 daily oyster offerings "have only been out of the water for a couple of days at most." THE HARVEST It takes several lifetimes to master the art of oystering. Just ask Mike McGee, third-generation Chincoteague waterman and vice president of strategy for Ballard Fish & Oyster Company, who holds the majority of leases of the island's famed oyster beds, where wild and cultured shellfish are harvested 52 weeks a year. Steering Miss Linda, the boat named for his wife of 48 years, into Chincoteague Bay on a perfect morning last summer, McGee explains how wild oysters naturally attach their spat (larvae) to shells and rocks, while cultureds are spawned by Ballard's biologist from wild brood stock. These varieties (Pope's Bay, Chincoteague Cultured, and Misty Points) are triploid (neutered) in a process that interrupts cellular meiosis and renders them sterile by nature. "Because triploids don't spawn, they don't lose meat content like wild oysters do in summer," McGee says, discrediting the popular myth that oysters should only be eaten in months ending in R. Approximately 16 miles into the wilderness of Pope's Bay, a hidden universe takes shape beneath the quiet waters. Millions of cultured oysters thrive "in the same area where the mamas and papas came from," says McGee. "This makes for the perfect oyster; the salinity is high—it's the primo oyster we sell throughout the US." Some non-paying customers agree. The oysters are grown out in bags, cages, and fenced pens; otherwise blue crabs and horn-nosed rays "will really hurt us," McGee explains. "A school of rays "Oysters have become a delicacy market, with distinctions between regions, brands, farms, and varieties."—BILL DEWEY can eat a million oysters a night." As for two-legged poachers, McGee makes random patrols in the wee hours, packing a pistol (with permit, of course). Jumping off the boat fully clothed, he plucks a handful of Misty Points, shucking them on the spot. Perfect. Wild Chincoteague Salts are harvested with a small hammer in a process called culling. McGee estimates they take two and a half to three years to reach market size (three to four inches). "If somebody tells you somethin' different, I'll argue with 'em." As for cultureds, the spat is placed on shells to grow out, sorted in the water every two to three months, and eventually harvested by hand or with a small dredge. These take nine months to a year to reach market size. Says McGee, "We're the only place I know of in America who can do that." Harvested oysters are washed, counted, bagged, or shucked (20 shuckers process 150 to 200 gallons nightly, starting at 3 AM). Refrigerated trucks haul them to Chicago two to three times per week, year-round. When they hit your plate, they've been out of their waters two days, maybe three. THE SLURP Numerous factors have contributed to Chicago's slurping surge, including sustainability awareness, increased consumer adventurousness, and the farm-to-table movement. Bill Dewey, public policy and communications director at Taylor's Shellfish Farms in Shelton, Washington, says, "Oysters have become a delicacy market, with a lot of distinction between regions, brands, farms, and varieties." He notes, "This makes eating oysters intriguing, like tasting wines at a wine bar." LaHaie agrees: "Oysters have become MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 088-091_MA_FEAT_Dining_Winter13.indd 89 89 1/2/13 5:15 PM

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