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6th March -
Fête de l’Huître - oyster festival
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Saturday 6th March 2010
Fête de l’Huître - Le Barcarès
Oyster fans should make a special effort to visit Le Barcarès on Saturday 6th for an evening devoted to music, dance and
oysters! 12 tons of them await you! All in
perfect condition, opened by experts, at Mas
de l’Ille, Avenue de la Pinède, exit 12 on
the D83 direction the Lido. 22 euros for
adults and 6 for children will buy you music,
dancing, and as many oysters as you can
swallow!
Reservations 04 68 86 16 56
tourisme@portbarcares.com
In England oysters enjoy a rather risqué
reputation: Erotic, exotic,
expensive… but here in
the P O they are treated rather as
they used to be centuries ago in the
UK when they were very much the
food of the common man.
2000 years ago the Roman set such store by them they
imported them from all the coasts of their considerable
empire. Now, in France, oysters are party food. And, to
our advantage, they are farmed here, they are fresh,
they are delicious and, certainly, they are not
expensive. Whether or not they are an aphrodisiac
is up to you to discover, but, should you want to
taste some, the best place to go to lies between
Leucate and Barcares. Where the lagoon drains
into the sea, well signposted off the D627 is
the Centre Conchylicole. The oysters are raised
in the lagoon and brought to the huts that
line the channel to be packed and sold. Tanks
bubble with water full of oysters, small tables
are crowded with people tasting them and sipping
crisp white wine. The oysters for “tasting”
are served in multiples of 6, small, medium
and large; for buying to take away in whatever
quantity you need, opened or closed. Either
way very few euros buys you a chance to enjoy the taste of
the essence of the sea involving almost no calories and the
possibility of an improved love life… maybe…
Fishy facts about oysters
- Oysters are low in food energy; one dozen raw oysters contain approximately 110 calories (460 kJ), and are rich in iron, calcium, and vitamin A. The National Heart and Lung Institute suggest oysters as an ideal food for inclusion in low-cholesterol diets.
- Four or five medium size oysters supply the recommended daily allowance of iron, copper, iodine, magnesium, calcium, zinc, manganese and phosphorus.
- The name oyster is used for a number of different groups of mollusks which grow for the most part in marine or brackish water. Inside a usually highly calcified shell is a soft body. The gills filter plankton from the water. Strong adductor muscles are used to hold the shell closed.
- Fresh oysters must be alive just before consumption. They have an extremely short shelf-life, and should be consumed immediately on opening, before which they must be tightly closed; oysters that are already open are dead and must be discarded. To confirm if an open oyster is dead, tap the shell. A live oyster will close and is safe to eat.
- Oysters are believed by many to be an aphrodisiac. It is also said that "If you can get a woman to eat a raw oyster, you can get her to do anything!" referring to their visual nature, very unappealing for some.
- An old saying states that oysters are best to eat in months containing the letter r. This is because oysters spawn in the warmer months, from roughly May to August in the Northern Hemisphere, and their flavour, when eaten raw can be watery and bland during spawning season
- All oysters can secrete pearls, but those from edible oysters have no market value. Pearl oysters ( or Feathered Oysters)produce pearls by covering an invading piece of grit with nacre (or as most know it, mother-of-pearl). Over the years, the grit is covered with enough nacre to form what we know as a pearl. There are many different types and colours and shapes of pearl, but this depends on the pigment of the nacre and the shape of the piece of grit being covered over.
- The tiny crab that one sometimes sees in an oyster is a species of crab (Pinnotheres ostreum) that has evolved to live harmoniously inside an oyster’s shell. They are fairly rare.
- There is no way of telling male oysters from females by examining their shells although they do have separate sexes, and may change sex one or more times during their life span.
- Oysters breathe much like fish, using both gills and ’mantle’ which is lined with many small, thin-walled blood vessels which extract oxygen from the water and expel carbon dioxide.
- The cultivation of oysters began more than 2,000 years ago when Romans collected oyster seed stock near the mouth of the Adriatic Sea and transported them to another part of Italy for grow-out. The Romans had such a passion for oysters that they imported them from all over the Mediterranean and European coasts.
Info taken from Wikipedia
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