Molly O'Mara

Did you ever see a bay at low tide, with fields of oyster beds being harvested by tractors and a huge working force? We had no idea this is how they grew oysters. They then drive by on the streets of Cancale delivering their harvest to the various shops, restaurants, factories. People walk by with blue bags filled with their dozen or so fresh oysters. Heaven!

As the autumn sets in, so begins the busy season for oyster harvesting. They say, one should only ever eat oysters in months with an “r” in them…. And so we of course obliged and got ourselves downtown to Cancale, oyster Mecca, and the atelier de l’huitre for a degustation of the slimy slurpy deliciousness…..

We tried numbers 2 & 3 of the farmed fellas (I mean they are literally farmed there, before our eyes), slurped those right down with a bitta pain and burre between plates….then we had to try number 3 wild and number 2 flat to get the full scope of oysters..we didn’t know there were so many types! Though glad we didn’t go for the human hand sized number 0…as we saw some couple needing a fork and an knife to make edible sizes from this huge mofo!

Overall, our favourites lay between wild 3 and farmed 3! Oh to have more would be a treat, for another day!

We took a stroll down to the pier and watched as they worked the farms, and others ate their oysters from the market stalls! Fascinating.

As the autumn equinox sets in, equal length day and night, we finished our day (at 7pm, before real dinner time) with a galette (also famous of Breton) and walked back to our handy city Aire (park place for campers) amongst the trees a mere 10mins stroll from town.

Happy out!Read more