The popular Radio 4 weekly Food Programme today 23 March 2008) focused on British Oysters. Here's the blurb for the programme:
Oysters are truly a taste of the sea, and reflect the terroir, or perhaps merroir, of the area where they are grown. Native or Pacific, farmed or wild, from Colchester, Cornwall or Carlingford they all have their own unique character. Oyster enthusiast Hardeep Singh Kholi puts his taste buds to the test sampling some of the best oysters available, and finds out whether the native oyster’s recent decline might be on the brink of being reversed.
Hardeep Singh Kohli visits Wright Brothers Restaurant at Borough Market, London’s biggest oyster wholesaler, and now producers of their own in the river Fal, to taste some oysters and talks to co- owner Robin Hancock and Dr. Tom Pickerel from the Shellfish Association of Great Britain, about the state of oyster fisheries.
Reporter Dilly Barlow visits Richard Haward (pictured above), a traditional oyster fisherman in the creeks around the river Blackwater in Essex and discusses the history of oysters, how they are cultivated, the disease bonamia, and the emergence of the newly naturalised “wild” pacific oyster. Dr Lawrence Hawkins, National Oceanography Centre University of Southampton explains the impact on the native population of the disease bonamia.
Hardeep Singh Kohli talks to Rob Blyth-Skyrme, Senior Marine Fisheries Specialist for Natural England about the nature conservation threat of the naturalised pacific oysters.
You can listen to the programme for at least the next week at the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/foodprogramme.shtml. I note that programmes seem to be available for about three months at the moment. Well worth a listen, particularly for the discussion of the differences between Rock oysters (crassostrea gigas, native to the Pacific and now grown worldwide) and native Flat oysters (ostrea edulis).
No comments:
Post a Comment