North Puget Sound Oysters

"Oysters off the Puget Sound"
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North Or South Puget Sound Oysters Are Best.

Get Your Live Oysters At Oregon Seafood.

South Puget Sound, with its gentle beaches, is ready-made for oyster farming. North Puget Sound is not. The island coves to the north are deep and rocky, so it’s no surprise that most of Washington’s suspended-culture operations are concentrated in this area. With fewer land influences, the oysters from North Puget Sound tend to be brinier than those of the South Sound and lighter flavored—more cucumber than smoke.

Penn Cove Selects have something of a stranglehold on the Most Beautiful Oyster competition. Three times in the past several years they have won. The 2006 competition was such a slam-dunk that it was almost embarrassing for the other oysters. One plump Penn Cove Select sat there in its perfect filigreed shell, simply vibrating with class and vitality. It mopped the stage with the other fourteen entrants and received a perfect score from many judges. Beach-cultured in Samish Bay, then hung in the deep waters of Whidbey Island’s Penn Cove to purge, Penn Cove Selects are one of the quintessential Northwest oysters, eternally popular. They always have a nice size—four inches or so—gray-green shells, and the crunchy freshness of a salted cucumber.

The nonprofit Community Oyster Farm has been raising oysters in Drayton Harbor, a horseshoe of tide flats straddling the Washington/British Columbia border, since 2001. The goal is to improve water quality in the harbor, using proceeds from the oyster farm to fund the programs. It’s a perfect symbiosis, and it doesn’t hurt that the oysters are plump, sweet, and savory.

A Pacific oyster grown in the immaculate waters of Orcas Island, between Washington and British Columbia. Out there, they are practically immune to the vibrio and red tide attacks that affect mainland Washington oysters. Grown in bags on long lines, Judd Coves have pretty shells with purple and green swirls, and creamy white flesh contrasting with a precise black mantle. They are mild and vegetal in flavor, only slightly salty, and easy to eat.

Nake Roy’s Beach, A terrific oyster fruity and rich, with a nose that mixes rhubarb, spinach, and river humus. The shell has a deep, pearly interior and frills so extreme you wonder how the thing closes. The resemblance to a Penn Cove Select is strong, and since both oysters come from Samish Bay, it’s tempting to believe that something about Samish Bay’s sandy shores and windward orientation produces oysters with amazing, wavy shells. But forget the oyster; what about Naked Roy? He was a character known for staking out a particular section of sand on Samish Bay and working on his full-body tan. He has been immortalized in the unofficial name of the beach and now the oyster.