Storing oysters

People are often confused about when the oyster season is. Peggy Trowbridge Filippone is a writer who develops approachable recipes storing oysters home cooks. Her recipes range from Grandma’s favorites to the latest food trends. Perhaps the best reason to only buy oysters during the fall, winter, and spring—the “r” months—is related to the creature’s reproductive cycle.

Oysters spawn in the warm summer months, usually May through August, although in the Gulf of Mexico, oysters spawn year-round because of the warm water. Spawning causes them to become fatty, watery, soft, and less flavorful. In recent years, bacteria such as Vibrio parahaemolyticus have caused illnesses in several harvesting areas of the eastern United States throughout the summer months. Thanks to refrigeration, you can ignore the “r” rule and consume good oysters in spring and summer without incident. You can get them from cool waters or from farms, which gives them optimal flavor even in a month without an “r. In fact, a new genetic procedure being used by some commercial oyster farms renders farm-raised oysters sterile, so they don’t spawn at all. The answer to the oyster season depends on several factors.