Food

It’s Oyster Season

Charlestown’s Walrus and Carpenter farms oysters all year round – but fall in winter is when they’re the sweetest

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Jules Opton-Himmel didn’t grow up in southern Rhode Island, but he’s made a name for himself here as the owner/operator/head farmer of Walrus and Carpenter Oysters located in Charlestown’s Ninigret Pond. Opton-Himmel grew up in New York City, which is obviously not a place to farm oysters. After studying environmental science and forestry at Wesleyan and Yale, he decided life on the water farming oysters was a great way to combine his love of boating with his environmental science background. He’s been farming in Charlestown for five years now and has a 15-year lease from the state for his section of Ninigret Pond.

Oysters grow in mesh bags attached to PVC pipe frames in the brackish water of Ninigret Pond. As they get bigger, they are transferred to larger bags. It takes anywhere from one-and-a-half to three years for oysters to reach maturity, and they are harvested twice a week, year round. Oyster farmers need to be patient and accept the paltry 30% survival rate (for every 1,000,000 seeds, only 330,000 survive to maturity). Opton-Himmel is hard at work by 8am. Daily tasks on an oyster farm include stirring the “infant” oysters in the upweller (a nursery of sorts), sorting oysters and transferring them to appropriate sized bags, cleaning the bags, preparing oysters for market, and selling directly to consumers and local restaurants. Opton-Himmel’s least favorite task is sorting the oysters because he says it’s “mind numbing.”

Fall is the perfect time to try a Walrus and Carpenter Oyster. Opton-Himmel says the fall and winter oysters are the sweetest. He delivers the majority of his product to local restaurants and plans to keep it that way. He has had requests to ship as far away as Japan, but for him, contributing to our local food economy is more important. Oysters have an incredibly long shelf life when kept at a cool temperature (six to eight weeks), but Opton-Himmel them to restaurants on the day they are harvested. Locally, Walrus and Carpenter can be found at the Wilcox Tavern and Ella’s Fine Food & Drink in Westerly, The Mooring and The Landing in Newport, as well as several other restaurants throughout the state. Additionally, you can order the oysters directly at their website.

Walrus and Carpenter Oysters, charlestown, Ninigret Pond, eat, food, oysters, so rhode island

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