Old World, New Oysters

Wine has the Old World and the New World. But can we think about oysters the same way?

Not exactly.

“Old World” traditionally describes Europe, Asia and Africa, while the “New World” refers broadly to the Americas and, in many modern food and wine conversations, places such as Australia and New Zealand.

Apply that definition literally to oysters and something interesting happens.

France is Old World. Ireland is Old World. And so is Japan.

Yet when we talk about oysters, their story is far more intertwined than these geographical labels suggest.

A Japanese Oyster in France?

Take the Pacific oyster, Magallana gigas, formerly known as Crassostrea gigas.

The species is native to the Pacific coast of Asia and has a long history of cultivation in Japan. Today, however, it is also the oyster most people encounter across many of France's famous oyster-growing regions.

That wasn't always the case.

France historically cultivated its native European flat oyster, Ostrea edulis. After disease devastated stocks of other commercially important oysters during the 20th century, Pacific oysters from Japan became an important part of rebuilding French oyster production.

Over the decades, they became deeply established in French aquaculture.

So today, an oyster grown in France can belong to a species originating thousands of kilometres away in Asia.

Is it a French oyster?

Absolutely.

Is it also, biologically, a Pacific oyster?

Yes.

And that's where the idea of Old World and New World oysters begins to fall apart.

Same Species, Completely Different Oyster

Two oysters can belong to the same species and taste remarkably different.

An oyster grown along the French Atlantic coast experiences a different combination of salinity, tides, water temperature, algae, currents and farming techniques from one cultivated in Japan.

This is why we like the term merroir.

Borrowed from wine's terroir, merroir describes how the marine environment influences an oyster's character.

One might be intensely briny and mineral.

Another could be sweeter, creamier or more vegetal.

The genetics may give us the oyster, but its environment helps give us its personality.

So What Is an “Old World Oyster”?

Strictly speaking, there isn't really such a category.

Unlike wine, oysters aren't conventionally divided into Old World and New World styles.

We tend to talk instead about species, provenance, growing region and merroir.

And perhaps that's more interesting.

A French oyster can descend from a Japanese species. A Pacific oyster can be cultivated in Ireland. The same species can travel around the world and, through different waters and farming traditions, become something distinctly local.

The oyster may have travelled.

The taste belongs to the water.

Old World. New Oysters.

Perhaps that's the better way to think about oysters today.

Centuries-old oyster cultures continue to evolve with species that have crossed oceans and adapted to new waters.

Japan has its oyster traditions. France has its own. Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States each have distinctive oyster-growing regions and practices.

They don't fit neatly into Old World and New World boxes.

And they don't need to.

Because when an oyster reaches the table, the more interesting questions aren't simply whether it comes from the Old World or New World.

What species is it? Where was it grown? What were the waters like? And most importantly — how does it taste?

At The Oyster Cart, that's the journey we find much more interesting: discovering how oysters from different waters can look similar on the shell, yet taste completely different once opened.