Working the Lynnhaven & the return of good eats...
Updated: Sep 17
The Lynnhaven River is back!
In this article, we touch on some history and
highlight the people, places and practices that bring
the famous Lynnhaven Legend to the table.
The idea of the Lynnhaven Oyster Club has history. Chris Schellhammer returned to Virginia Beach in 2014 after a nearly 30-year hiatus from Virginia Beach. When he returned, he started volunteering for an oyster farm where he met and learned from another Chris, Captain Chris Ludford of Pleasure House Oysters (pictured). Learning from Captain Ludford, Chris was inspired to acquire a lease, take up oyster farming and share oysters and the Lynnhaven experience with others. Hense, the concept of the Lynnhaven Oyster Club was born.
The Local Palate, published this article last year, The Return of the Lynnhaven Oyster, and highlights Chris Ludford's story. In this article, Chris sings praises for the Lynnhaven and it's return to the table after hard times starting in the late 1980s when most of the Lynnhaven was closed to harvest. Efforts by environmental groups like Lynnhaven River Now encourage oyster farming which has helped the Lynnhaven return and offer up its world famous bounty once again. And while Ludford still grows oysters, he has expanded to share Lynnhaven history and his vast knowledge with others through Captain Chris' on-water tours. Visit Chris' Tour page to learn more about the popular Waterman Tour, Chef's Table Tour and Tasting Tour.
Chris Ludford is the latest in a long line of local watermen that have seen environmental changes play out in the Lynnhaven. Mary Reed Barrow of Lynnhaven River Now in this article writes about Oysterman, Capt. Irvin Evans pictured below.
The small building in the background is a
historical oyster shack, recently renovated. (see historical photos below)
Mary writes: "When I began working for the Virginian-Pilot, I often wrote about the city’s history, its environment and its delicious produce and seafood. Oysterman, Capt. Irvin Evans, who passed away in the 1990s, represented the best of all three, and I interviewed him many times. You could see his beautiful inter-tidal oyster beds on the Eastern Branch of the Lynnhaven when they were exposed at low tide.
He once told me that the difference between any oyster and a Lynnhaven oyster was like the difference between chalk and cheese. Sweet Lynnhavens also had a salty tang from the nearby ocean, he said.
Sadly, many of our conversations were about how Virginia Beach had grown and how the Lynnhaven was becoming too polluted for oysters and that many were dying off from disease. By the late 1980s, the river was closed to commercial shell fishing and Capt. Evans retired."(1)
Oyster shacks like these was where oystermen like Captain Evans would bring their harvests to process them for market. Several in the area have been restored and repurposed, but still tell the story of the Lynnhaven as working estuary rather than the recreationally dominant waterway we see today.
Take a short picture tour...
Back in the day, the harvest of native oysters required a fair amount of processing once oysters were pulled from the bottom because of how native oysters grow.
The black mud at the base of these wild oysters (photo) marks where this clump was anchored to the bottom. Oyster reefs are formed by young oysters taking up residence on their older brethren who are attached to even older shell on the bottom. This generational stacking creates a living matrix of oyster structure and creates protected spaces and a tremendous amount of surface area for a plethora of marine life to thrive.
Yet this physical quality of wild oysters leaves the oysterman with a final task, especially if his customer was interested in a half-shell product: culling.
After wild oyster clumps were gathered they were often transported to processing "houses" or "shacks" as the one pictured above. Within the walls of these places, oysters were both separated from one another and or shucked. Those who shucked often did not waste time separating the oysters. These shuckers would look at a clump of oysters like one might look at a rubrics cube before diving into the problem, and then would proceed to "shuck the clump" until all of the oyster meat was in a bowl and all that remained was a clump of empty shells.
But for the half-shell market, a tool called a culling hammer (below) helps separate the oysters from each other into single oysters that are then transported and shucked after they reached their final destination.
The once plentiful oyster reefs in the Lynnhaven that declined in the later decades of the 19th century, are on the rebound and Virginia state authorities are opening up more areas to harvest.
While plenty of challenges remain, such as abandoned recreational vessels, some critical consequences of development have been mitigated. Moreover, environmentally conscious groups and citizens everywhere are doing things large and small to improve water quality and increase oyster habitat.
Oyster growers are also doing their part by adopting aquaculture as a predominant farming practice. Aquaculture accounts for 80% of the oysters harvested worldwide and similarly, most operators on the Lynnhaven practice aquaculture.
As a member of the Lynnhaven Oyster Club, you are now a part of a long legacy by being an educated and enthusiastic consumer of Lynnhaven oysters. After all, this is one of the reasons Chris and Frank started the club. We are proud to be a part of the Lynnhaven legacy and are honored to share it with our members.
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