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Oysters
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History of
oyster
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The ancestor of
the oyster appeared at the secondary era, about 190
million years ago. A hundred species of oysters
remains today, living in most of the seas and
oceans.
At the Neolithic era, humans used to fish.
Everywhere we found remnants of cooking, we found
large quantities of oyster’s shells.
In China, oysters are cultivated since ancient
times. Since ever, bamboos are cut and put at sea so
that oyster larvae fix on them.
The Romans were great lovers of oysters. It was
discovered in the texts of Pliny the Elder that they
had already noticed that “oysters are better in some
places than others”. When Gaul was conquered, the
Romans imported oysters from Brittany.
Next to most of the Roman villas we found piles and
piles of oyster shells. There were pools with sea
water everywhere in Gaul (Clermont, Poitier, Saintes,
Jarnac…) on the roads of oysters which were intended
to store the shellfishes when they travelled to Rome. |
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La mangeuse d'huîtres |
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Jan Steen (1625-1679)
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XVII & XVIII
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In 1698, John LISTER
from England was surprised by the technique used by the
French to bring fresh oysters in Paris: oysters are
removed from their shells and are stacked in baskets of
straw, so they arrive ready to be put in stews.
At the time of Voltaire, oysters were less for food than
for aperitif, so it was not uncommon in the banquets to
serve ten or twelve dozen for each guest as a "mise en
bouche "… |
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Déjeuner aux huîtres |
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JF de Troy 1727 (Musée Condé,
Chantilly) |
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Birth of modern oyster
farming |
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The wild oysters were extremely abundant on
French shores, especially on the coast of the North Sea and
the Channel. Over time, oyster farming was forgotten and
people simply fished wild oysters. Oyster beds seemed
inexhaustible to such an extent that an order of the king in
1726 to protect coastal resources, forbade any kind of
fishing tool except for oyster fishing.
Extensive exploitation of oyster beds resulted in the
depletion of the mollusc and in the eighteenth century,
royal authority had, for the first time, to punish abuses. |
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For a long time,
oysters were simply fished from the natural beds and
then stocked over the foreshore (uncovered by the
sea at low tide). St-Vaast la Hougue was one of
those sites where oysters were stored. In 1820,
following an intense cold, a fisher lost almost all
the oysters he had parked. When he wanted to get rid
of the empty shells of his dead oysters, he noticed
they were covered with small oysters: he had
rediscovered oyster breeding.
In the second half of the nineteenth century,
fishing decreased at the same time as the oyster
beds dwindled. Meanwhile oyster farming was growing.
Until 1963, the breeding of oysters in St-Vaast was
on the floor. The oysters were thrown on the floor
and then raked to pull them out of the sand. New
techniques have allowed a substantial extension of
oyster farming. The use of plastic pockets put onto
iron frames was imported from Japan where it was
known since the 30's.
Throughout the last century, there were several
attempts to create new production centres in
Normandy, but it is in fact in the early 70's that
there was a boom in this activity.
Today Normandy is
the first oyster-producing region in France. |
Techniques anciennes, et...
techniques modernes. |
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