What’s the best way to shuck an oyster? We asked the pros at Oyster Fest in Shelton
One of the highlights of last weekend’s Oyster Fest, the annual seafood festival that attracts thousands of people to Shelton in early October, is the West Coast Oyster Shucking Championship.
There’s a speed competition, which took place Saturday, and the speed and presentation contest on Sunday. Both involve 24 oysters, either shucking them as fast as competitors can, or shucking them to present them as if someone paid for all those half-shell oysters at a restaurant.
Greg Egashira of Seattle is a regular shucker at Oyster Fest, someone who has been coming to the weekend event since 1990, he said.
The entire thing started in 1982 and has long been organized by Skookum Rotary Club in Shelton.
Egashira is an electrician today, but he also spent time in the restaurant industry, he said, recalling that preparing half-shell oysters was feared by some restaurant staff because they considered it messy and icky and just hard to do.
Egashira eventually decided to think carefully about how to open the oyster shell and how he could do better. Soon, it was no longer a chore, he said.
David Leck of Seattle, another competitor, started shucking oysters when he was 20 and now is 42, he said. He started competing at Anthony’s Oyster Olympics in Seattle and has since competed throughout the country and Canada.
Jonathan Leon of Raymond, who was there on Sunday competing in speed and presentation, has been shucking oysters for about 18 months, he said. It runs in the Leon family because his uncle, Alejandro Leon, also was in the competition.
What are their techniques for speed and presentation? Here’s what they had to say:
▪ Egashira: “I go through the hinge of the oyster shell. I pop the top shell by breaking the hinge, run the knife along the top shell to cut the muscle and cut the bottom muscle. And there you go, you can present it to your patron.”
▪ Leck: “I’m a hand shucker so I go through the hinge. There’s a lot of guys who go through the lip of the shell, but I go through the hinge. It’s just the way I learned how to shuck, so it’s easier for me to do it that way.”
▪ Leon: “From the front of the oyster, I work the knife in without cutting myself. After I lift up the shell to cut the muscle, I try to cut the muscle that’s above to take the least amount of time possible. You also want no shells, no cuts to the oyster itself and no blood because nobody likes blood.”
When Leon says “blood,” he’s referring to when a shucker cuts themselves on the knife or on the rough oyster shell. Egashira had the hand scars to prove it.
Leck added that judges will check the oysters for bits of shell or cuts, and if they find any, they dock you points by adding seconds to your overall time.
So what did they do with all those half-shell oysters created by the competitions? They were served to the crowd.
Brothers Ben and Simon Toews of Tacoma attended Oyster Fest. Ben, 15, said it was his first time there and his first time to try a raw oyster. He said he swallowed it and enjoyed it.
But asked if he was going back for one more, he replied, “I’m going to think about it.”
His younger brother Simon announced he doesn’t eat oysters, calling them “slimy.”
Jim and Dori Schnelz of West Seattle said they were true enthusiasts of the oyster.
“They taste good and they come from the sea; it’s like having the ocean in your mouth,” Jim said. “Fresh, salty and meaty.”
He added that he doesn’t just swallow the oyster whole, but chews it.
“It’s the flavor,” Dori said. “I savor it and my tongue dances around it.”
Asked if she would swallow the oyster whole and chase it with a beer, she responded in horror.
“If I saw anybody do that, I would say ‘No more for you.’ It’s not meant to be swallowed whole — you gotta chew.”
This story was originally published October 10, 2023 at 5:00 AM with the headline "What’s the best way to shuck an oyster? We asked the pros at Oyster Fest in Shelton."
