Philly’s Shuckfest returns this Saturday with 10,000 oysters and a sustainable mission

Want to help improve Philadelphia s waterways Experts have this advice Eat more oysters As the summer season approaches so does the time for peak oyster enjoyment And there s no better time to start slurping up those slippery suckers than this weekend The Partnership for the Delaware Estuary PDE a local environmental nonprofit that works to protect the Delaware River and Bay is teaming up with Oyster House s Shuckfest Philly s annual oyster celebration Together the restaurant and nonprofit will work to recycle every single shell used at the festival which runs Saturday from to p m at Liberty Point at the Seaport Museum The PDE has spent almost a decade expanding its oyster shell recycling scheme The initiative collects used shells from restaurants and repurposes them to create environmentally-friendly and beneficial reefs in the Delaware River Views of the Delaware River from Shuckfest Courtesy of Leah Morgan We do a lot of living shoreline work and living shoreline implementation noted Leah Morgan the assistant manager of estuary science at the PDE The reef itself is also very good at protecting the coastline from all of those risks like storm surge coastal flooding So by reintroducing this material back into areas where it is typically or was once very ubiquitously revealed it s really beneficial Recycled oyster shells can play a crucial part in restoring Philly s waterways helping improve water quality through filtration serving as a habitat for baby oysters and protecting the shoreline from erosion Shuckfest will be serving up thousands of shells which will then be used in the operation Each farmer will bring oysters and we have local oyster farms explained Sam Mink the owner of Oyster House and festival organizer And then we have the oysters for the learning how to shuck table so that s a sparse oysters And then we have the oysters for the shucking competition It s a minimal oysters so I would say upwards of oysters With this numerous mollusks on hand at the festival this weekend is sure to not only be great for your tastebuds but also for the Delaware River s shoreline A full circle process The PDE s oyster recycling operation launched in and in the last decade the activity has grown bigger and bigger now collecting from eight different Philly restaurants and two storefronts Last year the organization collected a total of pounds more than tons of oyster shells to return to the shoreline which is seven times more than they were collecting in Picking up all these shells around town is no small feat Ken Williamson an oyster restoration specialist has become the go-to guy at the PDE when it comes to collection Twice a week he drives to restaurants around Philly and loads barrels of oysters into his Chevy Silverado pickup truck The practice he says has brought chosen attention around town I definitely do have a rapport with chosen of the people in certain of the restaurants or even just specific of the people around the city I run into he noted There s a mailman that has a similar trail in Fishtown We re invariably vying for the same parking space And we re like Oh hey We chat all the time now and wave at each other Parking with a big truck full of oysters is no joke You know sometimes I ll park and stop somewhere get something to drink or a coffee And anybody near me people in convertibles are like Oh my God What is that If it s full of shells the smell is pretty strong in the summer Once the shells are collected they head to a management area and sit outside for at least six months to go through a curing process Oyster House Shuckfest is a summer tradition Courtesy Oyster House During this curing process the shell is exposed to the elements Morgan explained It s faced with sometimes extreme heat sometimes extreme cold rain snow sleet any type of weather that will effectively clean the shell in addition to bugs kind of scavenging on it and eating any leftover bacterial or biological material Eventually after enough time each shell will be biologically secure enough to go back in the waterway and serve as part of a reef There they work their magic and help the local shoreline improving sediment protecting the coast filtering the water mitigating storm surge and expanding marsh grasses What s more the shells work as a natural habitat for marsh animals and other critters The actual shell itself is a really great substrate for baby oysters Morgan explained So recycled oyster shell or dead oyster shell that exists on a wild reef is the ideal material for a larval oyster in its initial stage of life to come and latch onto and grow to an adult size and build a reef The shell reef helps them and provides protection she added It becomes a full circle process for these little guys who will grow strong and then we can eat them and use their shells again Sustainable seafood Initiatives like the oyster recycling activity at the PDE are a reminder to Philadelphians that eating seafood can be a sustainable practice Bryan Szeliga the owner of Fishtown Seafood was one of the early adopters of the activity and has worked to help the PDE expand the initiative into new restaurants Don t let the narrative of farm-raised fish is bad or seafood is bad or the oceans are going to be empty by don t let that narrative scare you from not eating fish Szeliga mentioned We as humans need to eat more seafood Earth is covered by roughly water and only of the animal proteins we consume comes from the ocean with half of that being farm-raised and half being wild Part of Szeliga s mission at Fishtown Seafood is not only to sell quality sustainable products but also to educate eaters on environmentally friendly dining practices Fishtown Seafood sells oysters from all over the East Coast Oyster shell recycling bins Courtesy of Leah Morgan I ve just kind of over time fallen in love with this very unique industry Szeliga announced The greater part chefs might know how to cook seafood but chefs don t know anything about seafood and the supply chain and that s one of the things that we are able to do and offer to explain it to people One of the newer adoptees of the oyster shell recycling operation is Jaffa Bar Chef Andrew Henshaw commented that opting into the operation was a no brainer because it reduces the restaurant s waste and is a free provision that helps local waterways The chef serves a wide variety of oysters at the restaurant with different mignonettes and cocktail sauce The Jaffa Tower at Jaffa bar Photo by Michael Persico The mignonettes include a Yemenite-style chili paste with serrano peppers jalapeno peppers parsley cilantro garlic and ginger with coriander and cardamom he revealed He calls the mixture floral and bright The mignonette is a little bit spicy It s a little bit sour from the vinegar in there and then kind of adds savoriness from the shallots he declared And then you put it on top of a super-salty briny oyster And it s just like such a cool experience to eat Each oyster is unique Shuckfest will be outside at Liberty Point with a view of the Delaware River The festival includes an amphitheater with live music dancing and a shucking competition where competitors are graded not only on how fast they can shuck but the quality of their work as well as a table where everyday festival goers can learn how to shuck an oyster There will also be an outdoor beer garden and delicious bites For those who haven t liked oysters perhaps due to their raw and slippery nature both Szeliga and Mink suggest it s worth it to give them another try Freshly shucked oysters from Oyster House Courtesy Oyster House It s almost like someone saying I don t like wine Szeliga reported Well what wine did you have Where did you have it from Certain red wines are different than white wines and there are different geographies and different varietals etc It all makes for totally different experiences of oysters So a Gulf oyster or a Chesapeake Bay oyster is going to have a different flavor profile different salinity than something that is coming out of Atlantic Canada or Maine etc Mink echoed this sentiment explaining that for skeptics out there it s OK to be choosey I m not going to tell anyone that they re wrong if they don t like something he explained But I would suggest that they try a freshly shucked oyster So if they had an oyster and they didn t have a good experience I would ask why Where was it What kind of oyster was it How is it shucked A good oyster should taste fresh like the water it comes from and can have a buttery feel For those interested in learning more about the PDE s oyster recycling scheme Shuckfest will have a whole table dedicated to the initiative We just hang out as people pass by Williamson announced We speak with them try to get people to sign up for our newsletter Occasionally we ll talk to somebody who s a restauranteur or somebody who has a larger interest in maybe contributing to the initiative while we re there which is what we re hoping for The Partnership for the Delaware Estuary table at Shuckfest Courtesy of Leah Morgan Mink is looking forward to this weekend and declared he is expecting around people to come out and participate Tickets are and attendees get to sample two dozen oysters from different local oyster growers Proceeds will help help the Jetty Rock Foundation and the PDE We re happy to be celebrating all of our local oyster farmers Mink noted It s a great way to sample what we have in our local oyster industry Back in the day we used to have so a great number of oyster bars in Philadelphia he added They used to be very popular and they kind of went by the wayside And oyster bars have been coming back just now much more popular than they ever have at least in our lifetime But we had a strong oyster industry for quite a while and it died down and we re happy to be back and celebrating The post Philly s Shuckfest returns this Saturday with oysters and a sustainable mission appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY