When John Shields returned from the West Coast 12 years ago to open Gertrude's, he wanted to feature fresh coastal food cooked with local ingredients in the Baltimore restaurant. He bought Chesapeake Bay crabmeat, vegetables from the city farmer's markets – even shrimp farm-raised on the Eastern Shore.
But the oysters were often from elsewhere. Prince Edward Island. Nova Scotia. Connecticut. Occasionally, Shields did serve the wild-caught Bay oysters, but the availability and the quality were inconsistent. Shields, who is also a television show host and has written cookbooks, asked the watermen he knew why no one was farming oysters in the Chesapeake, like it is done in California. They told him it wouldn't work.
"I was under the impression it was impossible to farm oysters here," Shields said. "I took them at their word, that it couldn't be done."
That changed a few years ago, when an oyster farmer – Shields doesn't remember who – walked into Gertrude's with a cooler of ice, set it down and shucked a few beautiful oysters. The veteran chef loved that the oysters were raised sustainably. But what sold him was the taste: The oysters, he said, were fantastic.
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