This year, Cornish Native Oysters will be available form September... the online shop will open sometime in August, depending on water temperatures. If you would like to be notified please send an email!
___________ ___ ___________
Support the restoration of the 25' Truro River Oyster Dredger 'Jubilee' built in 1908 and renamed 'Boy Phil'...
...watch the progress at Jubilee 1908
or visit the shop from September and pledge your support from as little as £1
Photo: Ranger 2010
___________ ___ ___________
Buy your 'Cornish Native' t-shirts, hoodies and
Limited Edition Newlyn Fishermans Smocks
supporting 'Oysters From The Fal' also online
at the secure shop...
___________ ___ ___________
See the last traditional fishery working under sail and try all the River Fal Seafood at:
A 3 day Authentic
Oyster Gathering & Cornish Seafood Market
Click Here!
Photo: Emily Davis
___________ ___ ___________
Pandora team wins Cornwall Catering Excellence Challenge 10/02/2010
Chef Dale McIntosh and his team scored a fantastic victory in the Cornwall Catering Excellence Challenge on Monday night (8 Feb). In a tense cook-off judged by a panel of Michelin-starred chefs, lecturers, restaurant owners and food critics, they beat five other teams from top restaurants and hotels in the county.
One of the judges, Michelin-starred chef Nathan Outlaw, described Dale's starter of 'Cornish Native Oyster set in Camel Valley jelly' as one of the best dishes he had ever tasted.
___________ ___ ___________
Check out Slow Food UK Presidium Suppliers list at:
http://www.slowfoodark.com/Cms/Page/south-west#5
___________ ___ ___________
Cornish Native Oysters or 'Fal Oysters' are thought to have been found since the earliest trading with the Phoenicians, and were widely grown around the coast when the Romans occupied Britain. For hundreds of years they were seen as a food for the poor who would gather the plankton-feeding bivalves from the muddy banks of creeks and rivers at low tide. In 1298 they sold for 2d (less than 1p) a gallon and were cheap in comparison with other fish.
By the time Sir Richard Carew published the Survey of Cornwall in 1602, oysters were being caught using dredges “a thick strong net fastened to three spills of iron, and drawn to the boat’s stern, gathering whatsoever it meeteth lying in the bottom of the water, out of which, when it is taken up, they cull the oyster and cast away the residue, which they term gard, and serveth as a bed for the oysters to breed in.” In Carew’s time oysters were abundant around the Cornish shoreline, now they are only found in the Fal, Percuil, Helford, Fowey and Camel rivers; the Fal has the last wild oyster beds, in the other rivers both native and Pacific oysters are re-laid and farmed. The Cornish Native Oysters are slow maturing, taking up to five years to grow to a marketable size, and is thought to have a far superior flavour to the faster growing Pacific oysters (crassostrea gigas also sometimes known as rock oysters).
http://www.england-in-particular.info/goods/g-case4-04.html