WHAT IS A
KUMAMOTO
Kumamoto is the name of the large bay on the
southern most Island of Japan, Kyushu. For some reason, a different
species developed there than the most abundant oyster found in
Japan, the northern Japanese oyster, Crassostrea gigas. The
Latin name for this unique oyster is Crassostrea sikamea, now
commonly referred to as the Kumamoto Oyster.
How
did the Kumamoto become so popular in the USA? About fifty years
ago the oyster growers in Humboldt Bay California thought they had
come up with the solution to the summer oyster problem.
The
west coast oyster industry had been importing oysters from Japan
since before World War II and only stopped for the years during the
war. The oysters grown on the West coast from Japanese seed were
used for shucking and found their way on the supermarket shelves as
fresh-shucked oysters in the jar or in cans of oyster chowder. To have
a good quality shucked oyster, it must be firm and fat and not all
soft and mushy as they get during the summer when readying for
spawning.
As
soon as the big one was dropped, those oystermen where booking
flights over to visit their old oyster buddies in Japan. The
Oyster men in California knew about this beautiful, plump, sweet
oyster located down south in Kumamoto and thought that in the cold
water of Humboldt Bay that those warm water Kumamoto’s would never
get all soft and mushy for spawning. The warm water is what
makes the oysters sexy. Keep them in cold water and they
never get in the mood. So they oyster boys in Humboldt Bay
decided to bring over a few million Kumamoto Seed to see how they
would do. For many years after that, the Kumamotos were
cultured in Humboldt Bay and wound up in oyster chowder and on
supermarket shelves.
Then the Oystermen got really wise and commissioned the
first successful, commercial oyster hatchery in the USA, Pigeon
Point Shellfish to start raising these Kumamoto seed for
them. This way they wouldn’t have to make those long trips to
Japan every year and eat all that raw fish. Years went
by. Then the market for shucked oysters became more
competitive, costs of growing and shucking oysters increased. Those
slow growing, difficult Kumamotos were forgotten about. Until
the early eighties... In 1982 when I was first starting
Marinelli Shellfish, I was looking for new and exciting oysters to
sell. Since I had worked at Pigeon Point for a number of years,
I knew all the oyster farms. I called up my buddies in
Humboldt Bay and spoke with the chief oysterman up there, Twig
LaBranche (that’s his real name…). I asked Twig about all
that Kumamoto seed we had been sending him for years. He had
millions of these Kumamotos on his beds and nowhere to sell
them. They had become just too expensive and slow growing for
him to do anything with. Enter the Kumamoto half shell
oyster. The initial reaction in San Francisco where I first
marketed the Kumamoto was, “sorry kid, you’ll never sell them, too
small…” Not discouraged I went door to door and bypassed those
stodgy fish wholesalers. When restaurants like Chez Panisse,
Fourth Street Grill and Zuni café started featuring my Kumamotos I
knew I had a hit.
Now
oyster farms from California to Washington are growing the Kumamoto
oyster, but the BEST still come from Humboldt Bay. Twig La
Branche has long retired but even more disturbing is that the
Kumamoto oyster is now extinct in Kumamoto Bay. There are no
indigenous Kumamotos left. Pollution has killed them
off. The Japanese had too realized that the Kumamoto was very
expensive to grow. The Northern cousin, the gigas was much
easier and profitable and no efforts were made to protect the
Kumamoto species. Now Kumamoto seed is like gold, with oyster
farms up and down the coast fighting over it. The Kumamoto oyster
has now become a rare specimen and a reminder of man’s folly in the
oceans.
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