FARMER Bill Taylor The Taylor family and their watermen manage the complex process of cultivating shellfish from the larval stage through maturity.

SUSTAINABILITY/LOCAL FLAVOR
The Taylor family has been growing shellfish in Puget Sound for over 100 years. They use the same beds by increasing the variety of shellfish in the same beds used since the 1880s.

SCIENTIFIC SOUP
The oyster is natures little pump. The bivalve pulls water in, filters and ingests nutrients…in the process it is doing some cleaning. Millions of oysters, pumping can clean and filter a whole bay.

A single oyster can filter a hundred gallons of sea water in a single day.

"I think there is something to the myth of their aphrodisiac qualities…they are high in zinc and zinc is apparently important for human reproduction..."

SUSTAINABILITY
The oyster is a barometer, a bellwether. If the oyster thrives, the water is clean. When waters go bad, the bivalves suffer.

FOOD HISTORY
Humans have consumed oysters for more than 2000 years.

VOCABULARY
On The Half Shell: A phrase commonly used to describe raw oysters served on the bottom shell only, usually on a plate of crushed ice or, in the case of cooked oysters such as Oysters Rockefeller, on a bed of rock salt.

MORE INFORMATION
Bill Taylor
TAYLOR SHELLFISH
130 SE Lynch Road
Shelton, WA 98584
Phone: 360.426.6178
Fax: 360.427.0327
Store: 360.432.3300
Taylorshellfish.com

CHEF Chef Greg Atkinson

DISH 1
Fried Oysters with Nettle Purée
RECIPE (pdf) >>

DISH 2
Steamed Oysters with Sweet Wine Butter
RECIPE (pdf) >>

"I think whatever you cook should really draw you into the time and place where you are..."

SPECIAL TOOLS/TIPS
To protect your hand, use a towel to hold the oyster while shucking.

Keep the oysters on ice and make sure not to serve any that have opened their shells or smell bad.

FOOD HISTORY
In the 18th-century satirist Jonathan Swift once wrote, he was a bold man that first ate an oyster," this bivalve has been a culinary favorite for thousands of years.