Peak oyster season is near, and Jen Rose Smith traveled the Maine Oyster Trail to find the best options. The trip found her in Damariscotta, home of the giant Whaleback Shell Midden, a pile of oyster shells left behind by native Americans who gorged themselves on the river’s brackish bounty. Smith reports that the midden, “was once estimated at 45 million cubic feet—enough shells to bury a Manhattan block 20 stories high.” That’s a lot of oysters.
Farm Fresh
Smith tasted oysters from farms that raise their oysters in the Damariscotta River. Gidden Point Oyster Farms, Pemaquid Oyster Company, and Blackstone Point Oyster Farms feature in Smith’s culinary voyage. Smith spoke with Virginia Shaffer, a certified oyster sommelier, who explained the special qualities of Damariscotta River oysters: “cold clean water, a silty river bottom and a salt pond that feeds the river, functioning like an all-you-can-eat buffet for growing bivalves.”
Damariscotta Dominant
There are oyster farms up and down Maine’s coast, but Damariscotta produces 80% of the total output of the state. The area is known as the Napa Valley of oysters. The Maine Oyster Trail website describes Damariscotta, writing:
Known as the “Napa Valley of Oysters,” the Damariscotta River is the beating heart of Maine’s oyster industry. Eighty percent of all Maine oysters are harvested from this river. The oldest operating oyster farms in our state are located along the Damariscotta, which stretches 12 miles from the Newcastle/Damariscotta town line to the Atlantic Ocean. The word Damariscotta (pronounced DAM-RIS-COTTA), is an Abenaki word that means “a place of many fish.” Technically an estuary (a place where fresh and saltwater meet), the river experiences significant tidal flows that range as much as eleven feet. Flourishing in these unique conditions, Damariscotta oysters have come to build a world-class reputation of their own.
If you’re planning a trip to Maine for oysters, do so before mid-October when they begin consuming their fat stores as the water becomes colder.
