Sounds like a fun trip and a yummy meal!

Here, we eat Mystic oysters and love 'em. Since our restaurants serve local seafood for the most part I've never had a PEI oyster but I'll watch for them at my fishmonger.

/tricia

Here is a link that might be useful: JP Shellfish - Mystic Oysters

Wellfleets have been my local oysters for many years and I like them very much. They have a good briny flavor.

Lately, oysters have started to be cultured in several other Cape Cod towns including my own and, being from essentially the same waters, they are all pretty much like Wellfleets. Cultivated oysters are nice because they have a more uniform shape and size.

Another oyster I like very much is the Belon from Maine. They were originally from France. They are round, not elongated, so you get a well filled shell.

I have enjoyed many an Apalachicola oyster but the ones from Northern waters are my favorites. I am sure those PEI oysters you had were delicious.

Jim

This post was edited by jimster on Fri, Dec 28, 12 at 16:00

Sounds wonderful. I love the seafood from PEI, lobsters, oysters, mussels. Can't go wrong. They have huge oyster beds, we were given a "tour" when we were last there.

Jim, I didn't know that Belons were being grown here. Good to hear. On my 'Bucket List' is to make a pilgrimage to Brittany and pig out on Belons. (Now if we could only get the French to release some breeding stock for the Bresse chickens....)

Given the oyster's current status as a delicacy, it's hard to believe that they were so plentiful at one time it was once considered trash food. Similar to lobster: lobster was so common at one time that indentured servants had it written into their contracts that they were not to be fed lobster more than once a week.

Good luck on that arley, the closest I know of is the Canadian "Blue Foot" which was raised from French Stock in the 1980s. We used to be able to get them, but because of biosecurity concerns, none have been exported since the mid 2000's, I think maybe 2005 or 2006.

Maybe I'll go into the chicken smuggling business. (grin) What harm could a few tiny little baby chicks do at Customs?

I don't know a darned thing about oysters, I cannot eat them raw, the texture is too mucilaginous. I do like them fried, but that kind of makes them all much the same.

Annie

Annie, I've always felt that the CIA should be doing worthwhile things for the country, and one would think that infiltrating the poultry farms of Bresse shouldn't be that difficult. But as William F. Buckley (himself a former CIA agent) once noted: 'The attempted assassination of Sukarno last week had all the earmarks of a CIA operation. Everybody in the room was killed except Sukarno.' So maybe poultry smuggling is beyond them as well.

See, that's why we have to do it ourselves. A covert chicken smuggling operation. I could be a veritable poultry Matahari!!!

OK, now I'll be waiting for that call from the CIA, no expectation of privacy on the internet, LOL.

Annie

I also am not a lover of raw oysters, but my spouse is. He adores it when we go up to Washington state and stop at the Hama Hama oyster company in Lilliwaup, WA, on our way from Seattle to Port Angeles.

Last time we were up there with friends and lucked out, weather was good enough to sit outside and gaze across the channel as spouse and friends gorged themselves. Us non-raw oyster eaters contented ourselves with fresh bread and cheese. Midweek so no one else was around - peaceful, glorious sunshine, calm blue waters, green forests and hills.

Sublime! Good food, good friends, great setting. What more can you ask for?