Above: Raquel Burrows (left) and Chef Paul Lillakas at Sea Rocket Restaurant, P.E.I. Photo courtesy of Crystal MacGregor
The Food Island Partnership, an industry-led organization meant to promote the food industry in Prince Edward Island, recently launched an interactive map meant to connect consumers to the source of their locally-harvested oysters.
The map includes 10 regions around the island in which the oysters are harvested, as well as information about the local processors.
“On Prince Edward Island, we’re pretty proud of our world-renowned oysters, knowing that 26 per cent of Canadian oysters come from P.E.I.,” says Crystal MacGregor, Director of Marketing and Communications for Food Island Partnership.
“For years, they’ve been wanting to do this amazing kind of map and they wanted to do it more in a print version. So, we were able to get some government funding, and we pulled together a creative team, and helped bring this to market.”
The map also highlights the geography of these 10 harvesting regions and the impact that the water these oysters grew in has on the different flavours one would get from them. In the world of oyster afficionados, these location-based flavours are known as a “merroir.” This term is related to the wine-growing term “terroir,” used to describe the environmental factors that affect a wines flavour.
“Sommeliers have a way of describing the flavours of wine. We love how our Island merroir can help you understand the flavours of our oysters and how they can vary across the island depending on how they’re grown,” says MacGregor. “We partnered with John Petcoff and he’s describing how to taste an oyster like a pro. You can click on that and watch a video on the different flavours of oysters — whether they are earthy, or more umami, or whether it has a more metallic, or sweet or salty flavour as well.”
This new map is part of The Social Shell, a website meant to educate consumers on buying, preparing and cooking oysters and mussels.
“The Social Shell is a digital consumer platform where we have a digital community of over 16,000 people who are sharing our passion for oysters,” says MacGregor.
According to MacGregor, this project is still in its infancy. Over time, the Food Island Partnership hopes to highlight the many harvesters from around P.E.I. and bring their work to the forefront. The project was unveiled at the P.E.I. International Shellfish Festival in mid-September, to what she described as, “a lot of really good uptake and excitement.”
“This is probably phase one of many,” added MacGregor. “We also want to acknowledge all of our fishers and growers. That will probably be a later phase where we can highlight their names on the map as well, because that’s the only part that’s really missing right now.”
The interactive map can be found on www.thesocialshell.com at the top of the page, among many recipes, shellfish-centric events, buying tips and more.
