And in common with so many other native ingredients in Australia – for so long neglected, overlooked or taken for granted – the Rock oyster's time as a contemporary luxury food, valued for its flavour, provenance and authenticity, has finally come. Even the name has changed, with the dropping of the superfluous and misleading prefix of "Sydney".
The rich Oyster Coast
Pulling into the shed, we see the short black poles marking the borders of a discarded oyster lease, a not-unfamiliar sight in this part of the world. Rock oyster farming is harder than it looks, and not all operators make a go of it. "I really believe Oyster Coast will be the saviour of this river," says Collison.
Since 2015, the Oyster Coast has been more than just a geographical entity. Collison is one of around 45 farmers who are also shareholders of the ASX-listed company Australia's Oyster Coast(AOC), aimed at bringing much-needed scale to a historically fragmented industry and at shoring up the coast's reputation as the most environmentally sustainable oyster-growing region in the world. AOC is conducting trials on a Mirimbula farm of an environmental accreditation program, developed by an independent auditor to unique Rock oyster specifications.
Its eco-credentials are just one reason AOC's premium brand, Appellation – hand-selected oysters from various estuaries spanning the length of the Oyster Coast, from Shoalhaven in the north to Wonboyn in the south – is on the menu at about 60 of Australia's Top 100 Restaurants.
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At Merivale's upscale brasserie Bert's, at The Newport on Sydney's northern beaches, chef Sam Kane offers Appellation to the exclusion of all other oysters. On display at the raw bar, they're opened at the last minute and served on ice, with a wedge of lemon and some chardonnay vinaigrette on the side.
"It's great that you can try a couple from one farm and a couple from another farm, and compare the flavours," Kane says. "I'm not a big fan of Pacifics, to be honest. And I think they're a bit invasive [as a species]. Rock oysters have this wonderful vegetal, minerally flavour that's incredibly long and nuanced, and I think it's superior. Pacifics, well it's just like you've been dunked in the surf."
AOC chief Mark Allsopp sums up the flavour difference between Rock and Pacific oysters in more technical terms. "Pacifics have three flavour profiles," he says. "Sweetness, brine and creaminess. Rock oysters have five: sweetness, brine, creaminess, mineralisation, and umami [Japanese for deliciousness]."
Pacific oysters bigger
On Day 2 of our coastal tour, we drop in to see fifth-generation farmer Ben Ralston at his lease on the Clyde River, near Batemans Bay. As one of five boys, he's heard all the jokes about oysters' ancillary benefits before, but he laughs along anyway. Maybe some oysters are more beneficial than others? Ralston's oysters – on the menu at Rick Stein at Bannisters, a 45-minute drive away in Mollymook – are kept active by dramatic fluctuations in salinity that create a unique growing environment, while their diet is rich in organic sedimentary nutrients.
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"It's the wide river mouth here that makes these oysters so special," Ralston says with obvious pride.
Out in his punt, he shows us where his grandparents used to place rocks in the shallow water, the way most oysters were farmed back then. The '60s saw the advent of stick cultivation, an effective but environmentally degrading method, now largely superseded by swinging baskets or floating baskets that house the bivalves for most of their two- to three-year cultivation.
Back at his shed, Ralston opens a Pacific oyster – a monster – for us to try its briny, linear flavour and chunky, raw-chook-breast texture in sharp contrast to the sweeter, smaller, and lightly minerally Clyde (many growers along the Oyster Coast farm Pacifics as well as Rocks).
And for some of us, there's the rub: Pacifics are bigger than Rocks, perhaps a consideration when you're sizing up your freshly shucked, pricey half-dozen in a restaurant or at a fishmonger. How much does size matter?
Sydney seafood authority John Susman is head judge of the NSW Royal Agricultural Society's oyster competition and a director of AOC. He sees an emerging maturity of oyster appreciation among consumers, echoing that of olive oil and wine appreciation.
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"I think we're at the same level now with oysters as we were with olive oil a decade ago," he says. "We used to put oysters in two categories: Kilpatrick or au naturel. Now, there's a focus on size, but we're starting to move on to the next level of appreciation: flavour."
Put simply, Rock oysters trump Pacifics in the flavour stakes because of their diet.
"The Rock oyster is quite particular about what it eats and filters much smaller particles than Pacifics, resulting in slower growth but flavours that are more directly related to the food in the water, so the oyster really reflects its merroir [the marine equivalent of terroir]," Susman says. "They're just a really unique animal."
The writer travelled to NSW as a guest of Australia's Oyster Coast.
