Species sheet · The Edible Ocean
Pacific oyster
It replaced the Portuguese oyster in 1970, after an epidemic wiped the lot out.
- Raw, freshly shucked, with lemon
- Grilled a few minutes in the oven
- Briefly poached in its own liquor
- In French
- Huître creuse
- Scientific name
- Magallana gigas
- In the water
- Benthic; brackish; from 0 to 15 m; hard shoreline substrates and shallow sediments.
- Season & buying
- Best from September to April by the old 'months with an r' rule; sterile triploid oysters, sold as 'four seasons', stay plump even in summer, so ask which kind you're buying.
- Common length
- ~15 cm
- How to identify it
- Deeply cupped, flaky shell
Elongated, irregular outline
Creamy grey blotched with purple
On the plate
Briny, fleshy and long, with a sweet finish that shifts from bed to bed.
Avoid: Throwing away the first liquor: it is a restaurant reflex, and it is exactly where the sense of place lives.
It changes sex several times in its life, sometimes from one season to the next, depending on water temperature and available food.
In Umay recipes
4 Umay recipes call for it.
