OYSTER HISTORY

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 July 1931, Page 12

OYSTER HISTORY

NOT ALL “STEWART ISLANDS.” If the average New Zealander were asked where Stewart Island oysters come from he would probably reply, “From Stewart Island.” And he would be wrong. Not that there are no Stewart Island oysters. The real Stewart Island oysters, perhaps the most succulent bivalve in the world, the “Blue Point” (American) oysters notwithstanding were originally found at Port Adventure, on east coast, of Stewart Island, and were immensely appreciated by the early settlers and sailors w’ho used to fish the waters of the south. They were quite a peculiar species of shellfish, just as large as the ordinary “Stewart” (as known to all), but of different habit and shape. These oysters, unlike those which the whole of NewZealand gets from Foveaux Strait, propagate on the rocks in and round Port Adventure, and at a certain age they hive off into the deeper waters in the vicinity.

There are few people who knowmore of the oyster business in this country than does Captain Archibald Walker, of Eastbourne, who was born in Invercargill, and for many years w-as skipper of the tug Awarua, and later on the Theresa Ward (which he helped to design), sailing out from the Bluff, mostly to Half-Moon Bay, Paterson Inlet, and other inlets, including Pegasus. Captain Walker states that the Port Adventure oysters, for over thirty years protected from spoliation, are certainly a distinct species, for not only do they breed on the rocks, after the fashion of rock oysters, but they are different in shape, and have a deeper and more crinkly shell than the oysters sold here under the name of “Stewarts.” To the best of his belief the Port Adventure oysters have been protected for over thirty years, and he believes there must he thousands of tons of them there at the present time. He testifies to their superiority in flavour over the oysters from Foveaux Strait.

IMPORTANT DISCOVERY. “Did you ever hear how the oysters were discovered in the Strait?” said Captain Walker to a “Dominion” representative. “It w-as either in 1874 or 1875. There was at that time a real hard case of a skipper sailing out of the Bluff in a ketch—Captain Scolley, be was called, but whether he had a ticket or not I could not say. He was in the habit of running down to Port Adventure, and coming back with a load of oysters for Invercargill. On one of his runs home he encountered r. heavy gale, blowing inshore, and there w-as an immense chance of his boat being driven ashore. He had no anchor, so in order to make a drag on the leeway the boat was making he thought of his oyster dredge, with its three-foot bar and chain bag, and over it went. It certainly did act as a drag, and held the boat until the worst of the gale subsided. When they went to pick up the, dredge and get under weigh, to the great surprise of the captain it was chock full of oysters.

“That was the first occasion on which anyone knew there were oysters on the bed of the Strait. The position was about five miles off the entrance to the Bluff, blit as Scolley had taken no exact bearings in the thick weather prevailing at the time of his experience he was some weeks locating the spot; but eventually he did so, and at length came upon the great oyster bed, twenty-five miles in length, which .had been feeding New Zealand ever since without any apparent diminution in supply.” “In the old days the dredge bar was never more than 3 feet in length,” said Captain Walker. “This acts as a sort of cutting scoop which, as it is dragged along the sandy bottom of the Strait, scoops the oysters into the chain bag, suspended between the bar and the dredge line. Nowadays the dredge bar is as long as seven feet, as the oyster motor-boats are ’larger, and have more power with which to handle the dredges.” >■

THE SIX DOZEN MAN.

“I well remember the time I saw the record oyster-eater,” continued Captain Walker. “He was a Pennsylvanian Yankee, twenty-three stone in weight, named Aston, who had been sent out to New Zealand to consolidate the tobacco-selling agenciies in the Dominion. I was an officer on the Rotomahana at the time, and thhs man travelled with us from the Blluff to Melbourne. One day some of them were sitting on the after hatch in the sun yarning, when the chief steward asked the big American wha.t he thought of the New Zealand oynters.

“I guess they are some oynters,” said the Pennsylvanian, “but they scarcely come up to our Blue Points, which I think are the best oystiers in the world.”

“How. many Blue Points could you eat at a sitting if you were hungry?” asked the steward with something definite at the back of his mind.

“ ‘When hungry, I guess I couJd cat en dozen, done in egg and bread

crumbs.’ “‘ls that so?’ said the chief steward. ‘Well. I’ll bet you a sovereign thjatyou cannot eat ton dozen Stewarts at a sitting.' “ ‘That’s all very well,’ said the American. ‘Now we are three hundred milers away from New Zeialand. Where are the oysters?’ ‘ ‘Oh, Walker’s got a sack £n the tank.’

“ ‘What. Rood oysters?’ and tlue eyes of the gourmand glistened again. “ ‘Very good,’ said the stewar d. ‘He takes a sack-full over to Melbiourne every trip.’ “The bet was made and it was then decided,” said Captain Walker, “that there would be a test the next morning at 11 o’clock. The oysters were got out of the tank, opened upt, and fried in batter, and, after a preliminary bottle of stout, the 23-stoner started on his oyster-eating Mara thon. “The first three or four dozen disappeared like magic, then the giant began to settle down steadily to his task. At five dozen he took a deep breath, patted his great stomach and looked sort of satisfied. After the sixth dozen, the man confessed him-, self beaten—he could eat no more. So it was a case of calling the American’s bluff once more with a vengeance as Blue Point oysters are no larger or less satisfying than those which come from Foveaux Strait.”