World Oyster Opening Championships in Galway
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What happens at Galway’s World Oyster Opening Championships?
The Claire Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance. Now my next guest was at the World Oyster Opening Championships in Galway at the weekend and he's joined me. To tell me about it. Most importantly though, he has some oysters with him. Chef and DJ Marcus O'Laoire, hello.
It's always a pleasure to be here. How are you?
I'm very well. I know how to open an oyster. Well, I was given a lesson.
Do you know what here? I think it's one of those life skills that if you can break this out at a dinner party, at a picnic in the middle of the summer, anything like that, it is something that takes people by surprise.
Keen Lewitt Feiss Fesser. Ah, Keen Lewis Fessier,
Carlingford.
Well, Kean doesn't say it like that. He doesn't do it the French way. He just like he's Carlingford true and but he taught me how to do it here. And I feel like I may have forgotten. Do you wanna just talk us through it so that I can get a refresher?
Absolutely.
How do you open an oyster safely with an oyster knife?
So I've got some West Coast oysters here. To kind of paint a picture for anyone who's listening on the radio right now. Uh these are deep cupped oysters. They're uh they're kind of large enough. They've be had a really nice growing season. Um and when you think of the shape of an oyster in that kind kind of teardrop shape, I've got a shooking knife and I'm inserting it at the back hinge um and just kind of giving it a little gentle wiggle. Until you hear a pop. The knife is in there and then I'm just twisting the knife like that. And then you We
should also say you have a tea towel in your hand. I have a tea towel.
The shell is sharp and yeah, you are hot you are h holding a knife. And that is something that actually is a you know, it's part of the oyster shocking championships that um if you get blood in an oyster, it's a serious time penalty. These are this is as close to an extreme sport as you're gonna get in the austericultural world, I think. So
now you have kind of you've you've you've sliced that top layer or that top shell off.
Yes. And then it's just about getting in to that abductor muscle. Uh and then you're just flipping the oyster and that's a presented oyster. Absolutely.
Why are Irish oysters prized, and how do their growing waters shape their flavor?
And I think that you know what, when you think about oysters now, even from where we're sitting here in the studio, there are a dozen restaurants within a couple of minutes of here where you're gonna be paying eighteen quid for a plate of oysters. And that's absolutely reflective of the work that goes in. Um, you know, from the likes of Kelly Oysters, where these are from in Galway or Kean and Mary in Carlingford um or any of the oyster farms around the country, it is a hugely manual labor intensive uh means of actually producing a product. And we have some of the best oysters in the world in Ireland. But a long time ago, uh actually not even that long ago, if you dig down in certain parts of Ireland, there's layers of oyster shells from people just eating them on the street.
They were the working man's lunch. They were so readily available. All across Dublin.
They were
absolutely they were they cost nothing and they were just a readily available thing. We'd um typically have them with malt, vinegar and white pepper was the was the sauce that Really. Yeah, was kind of the the traditional way of eating them in Dublin.
Probably lovely.
It's delicious. It works really well because when you think about an oyster, it's mineral, it's salty, it um it has that kind of you know it's like A little bit of the ocean in your mouth. And I d have you ever are you know what a terroir is, you know, when you the t the taste of a location.
Yes.
Oysters are described as having a miroir. So the taste of the
sea that they came from.
A taste of the sea where they came from. When you think about an oyster, right? It's a filter feeder. So they will take on the flavours of whatever is around them. There's actually, and I'm I'm struggling to remember the name. Maybe somebody can uh can text in and let us know or something. But there's a um there's an oyster farm up in Donegal that actually is very close to a bog which runs into the sea, and you almost get a taste of peat from the oysters.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What happens at Galway’s World Oyster Opening Championships?
0:01–0:51
2
How do you open an oyster safely with an oyster knife?
0:51–1:53
3
Why are Irish oysters prized, and how do their growing waters shape their flavor?
1:53–3:34
4
How does the Galway Oyster and Seafood Festival’s world championship work?
3:34–5:01
5
How fast do championship oyster shuckers work, and how are they judged?
5:01–6:18
6
What are the best toppings and cooking methods for oysters?
6:18–7:45
7
Why are Irish oysters and seafood celebrated abroad but eaten less at home?
7:45–8:46
8
How do you make mignonette and enjoy oysters during a live tasting?
8:46–10:38