By Bernard L. Herman
From SAVEUR Issue #151Just before dawn on Thanksgiving morning, I pull on my waders, grab a basket, and splash my way to the oyster cages that lie a hundred or so yards from our house on the banks of Westerhouse Creek, not far from the shore of Chesapeake Bay. Light from the kitchen windows flickers across the water. The first winter jellyfish pulse in the flowing tide. Hauling one of the cages onto the lip of a sandbar, I brush away seaweed, unhook the lid, and peer at the oysters inside. Silvery grass shrimp somersault across the shells. Mud crabs skitter to the cage's bottom. A drowsy oyster toad squirms in a corner. Into my basket, I toss big handfuls of oysters—a favorite delicacy at the Thanksgiving meal my family hosts every year on Virginia's Eastern Shore, the long, narrow peninsula that forms the eastern boundary of the lower Chesapeake Bay.
Keep reading »
