In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Galveston Bay Oysters
p3skyking
Member Posts: 23,916 ✭✭✭
My buddy Bill's son brought him a bushel of oysters for Christmas from Texas. Bill told me he got them for $15 a sack.
He said he'd save me some, but they were salty. Yesterday he dropped off about 30 and reiterated they were salty. "Well how salty can ocean water be"?
Later, I shucked a couple and they were the saltiest I'd ever tasted. Real close to non-edible. I called Bill and asked where these oysters had come from? He said Galveston Bay. I broke out a map and looked. Galveston bay is blocked by a breakwater with only a narrow passage in the center. It's a big ole salt marsh! The salt goes in but there's not enough fresh water flowing in to force salt back out. I bet it's full of sea salt drying ponds.
While the oysters are fine for Rockefeller, fried, or stew, they would have to be washed (which is a no-no) for the half shell. That's why they're only $15 a sack. The water in the shell tasted like it came from the Great Salt Lake.
He said he'd save me some, but they were salty. Yesterday he dropped off about 30 and reiterated they were salty. "Well how salty can ocean water be"?
Later, I shucked a couple and they were the saltiest I'd ever tasted. Real close to non-edible. I called Bill and asked where these oysters had come from? He said Galveston Bay. I broke out a map and looked. Galveston bay is blocked by a breakwater with only a narrow passage in the center. It's a big ole salt marsh! The salt goes in but there's not enough fresh water flowing in to force salt back out. I bet it's full of sea salt drying ponds.
While the oysters are fine for Rockefeller, fried, or stew, they would have to be washed (which is a no-no) for the half shell. That's why they're only $15 a sack. The water in the shell tasted like it came from the Great Salt Lake.
Comments
https://www.google.com/amp/www.chron.com/life/health/amp/Six-things-you-should-know-about-Galveston-Bay-9513999.php
Commercial leaseholders can harvest oysters year-round, but the open-to-everyone season runs Nov. 1 through April 30. So as oyster season begins, here?s the lowdown on Galveston Bay oysters.
1) The man who wrote the book on oysters says Galveston Bay oysters are at their peak Christmas to Easter. Robb Walsh is the food editor at Houstonia Magazine and author of the book Sex, Death and Oysters: A Half-Shell Lover?s World Tour. He says Gulf oysters are at their biggest and sweetest from January to March. During that time, they are easily the best-tasting oysters in North America.
2) One Bay, many flavors: Each part of Galveston Bay grows a different-tasting oyster. East Galveston Bay oyster reefs produce saltier oysters. Oysters harvested farther to the west, away from the Gulf?s saltwater inflow, taste less briny and tend to be fatter and sweeter than East Bay oysters. Central Galveston Bay oysters are, naturally, somewhere in the middle. It?s the different mixes of salt water and fresh water that give each area?s oysters their flavor.
3) Even people who hate eating oysters have reason to love them. A single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water per day. A healthy Galveston Bay oyster population filters lots of water, improving the overall quality. And those reefs the oysters attach themselves to when growing? They provide great habitat for bottom-dwelling fish and invertebrates that attract larger game fish. Reefs also stabilize the Bay bottom and break wave energy, preventing shoreline erosion and providing protection from storm surges.
4) Galveston Bay oysters are making a comeback after taking a big hit from Hurricane Ike in 2008. Now they face another threat - lopsided salinity. The balance of salt water and fresh water in Galveston Bay is what makes it an oyster paradise. When salinity's too low, oysters can't survive. When salinity's too high, oyster predators ? like the oyster drill ? thrive. Galveston Bay?s freshwater inflows come mostly from the Trinity River and the San Jacinto River. Texas? record drought is causing more water to be pulled from those sources for agriculture and private use. This is happening when there is less fresh water in the rivers to begin with. So less fresh water is reaching Galveston Bay, throwing off the salinity balance and endangering the perfect environment for oysters and other seafood.
5) Most of the oysters harvested in Texas are from Galveston Bay. And most of the oysters being eaten on the East Coast and West Coast are from Texas. Walsh says Texas ships out three-quarters of its oyster crop to the right and left coasts. So next time you order Blue Point or Chincoteague oysters at one of those fancy New York restaurants, you may be eating Texas mollusks.
6) Oysters grow best on other oyster shells. Galveston Bay Foundation's Oyster Shell Recycling Program collects empty shells from restaurants, cures them for six months in the sun to kill bacteria, and then puts them back into the Bay. So far, the program has delivered 125 tons back into Galveston Bay.
My raw fare will continue to be from Louisiana, or my favorite, Apalachicola oysters.
These were local clusters not large but tasty, one hunk of cluster provided about 3-6 Oysters, some so small you would think it would be be better to leave them in the water to grow but I guess a cluster is just that. I eat the little crabs that you find in the shells too, no saltines, no hot sauce.
That's unfortunate but the solution is simple. Bread them boys up, deep fat or air fry and chow down. [:)]
At a killer price, no less!!!!!
serf
https://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2017/oct/29/intracoastal-waterway-to-be-at-full-depth-nov-1/
https://www.dredgingtoday.com/2015/10/12/lecon-wins-greens-bayou-contract/
http://www.swg.usace.army.mil/Portals/26/docs/regulatory/PN Sept/PN.200700247.pdf?ver=2017-09-26-104317-983
Bought a Quart of Fresh-Shucked, labelled "Medium", and the entire Quart held only a Baker's Dozen! Yummy!
"Never do wrong to make a friend----or to keep one".....Robert E. Lee
Right off the boat shrimp is about
all we buy these days.
Passed on oysters long ago.
I live on the Island.
Right off the boat shrimp is about
all we buy these days.
Passed on oysters long ago.
BOI?
https://www.facebook.com/william.pollard.90/media_set?set=a.1111585215610537.1073741881.100002772064798&type=3
Having lived and worked in the Houston-Galveston area and seen what goes on first-hand around the waterfront facilities, I wouldn?t eat ANYTHING that came out of Galveston Bay. Heck, I wouldn?t even want to touch those fish.
Yeah, I'll pass on them in the future. The bay doesn't exchange the water fast enough for me, the large concentration of salt shows me that. Open water is far better for quality.
quote:Originally posted by TwoDogs
I live on the Island.
Right off the boat shrimp is about
all we buy these days.
Passed on oysters long ago.
BOI?
Wranger...
Not BOI....45 miles North[:)]
Bought my place here in 1985.
For years we never ate any seafood caught West of the Texas City dyke or near Sylvan Beach. This was the mouth of the shipping channel, and all the ships cleaned their waist while going through there. Also, all the Petrochemical Plants along the channel, and around Texas City had dumped waste into the bay for years.
That being said, the seafood caught around Galveston Island it's self, or South around Surfside/Freeport, and further South all the way to Padre Island was considered first class table fair.
The area has also cleaned itself up a lot over the past 40 years. Hurricanes Rita, and Iyke also helped to purge the area.
We used to grade a seafood restaurant on if they had a shrimp boat tied up out back. If they did you knew they had some fresh crab & shrimp.
A Red Lobster doesn't do very well in this area, or around Houston.
Trinity +++