“Eating the Sea”

There’s no way to write about Montauk without writing about fish and shellfish. Any beach walk brings treasures like clam, scallop, mussel and oyster shells, the strong tang of dried seaweed, the sight of boats in the distance and fisherman along the shore. Fishing and shellfishing are the heart of the place. The Eastern End of Long island was literally teaming with sea life from the time of the Montauketts.  

In the novel I’m writing, a character, Cory, works at The East Hampton Town Shellfish Hatchery, located in Montauk on Fort Pond Bay. When researching for his job, I visited the hatchery and learned why it’s so important. Over the second half of the 20^th century, with increased population on Long Island, an unsustainable amount of nitrogen from septic and agricultural sources entered the waterways; the resulting drop in oxygen suffocated many fish and shellfish. Brown tides occurred and the eelgrass beds, which act as nurseries for the shellfish spawn to grow into healthy adults, were eviscerated. Shellfish stocks plummeted.

Ironically, one solution to the problem of damaged shellfish habitat is to bring in more shellfish. Bivalves (such as oysters, hard clams, and scallops) filter the water as they feed and can counter an overabundance of the nutrients that promote algal blooms. In fact, oystermen have been seeding oysters on bay bottoms and on floats for over a century. The East Hampton Town Shellfish Hatchery was opened 1989 for oysters, scallops, and clams. They are grown from spat and then “seeded” into harbor and bay areas that seem most promising, including Napeague Harbor. And new programs to grow and plant oysters are currently underway in more locations throughout the town of East Hampton.

The oysters on Long Island Sound and the bays and estuaries of the East End are Crassotrea virginica, or Eastern oysters. I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy oysters harvested by friends and taken directly from Lake Montauk. Oysters taste of the place where they are grown; this is called meroir (similar to terroir, for food whose flavor derives from the soil). Their flavor emerges from the water and the micro-organisms they filter. That’s why it’s said that when you eat an oyster, you are, quite literally, “eating the sea.”