Name Your Oyster

Whether you have just ordered a Holmes Harbor Flat from Whidbey Island, Wash.; a Hog Island Flat from Tomales Bay, Calif.; or a Great Salt Pond Flat from Salt Pond, R.I., you’re going to get one and the same oyster: Ostrea edulis.

This isn’t to say these three oysters will taste the same. They won’t. They can’t. Because the water in which they have grown to maturity is unique. When you eat oysters, you savor a very particular slice of the sea.

This is why knowing the place name as well as the species name of the oysters you enjoy is so important. The name game is how you find your way back to where you want to be, again and again.

Here is a list of common and species names, with examples of the kind of place names you might find on a menu.

* European Flat (Ostrea edulis). This is the famous Belon oyster of France. It goes by other traditional names in France as well, including Marennes and Archachon. In Holland it’s known as Zelande, in Belgium as Ostende, in Ireland as Galway Bay and in England as Whitstable, Colchester, Pyefleet and Helford. In this country, the European Flat is known by many names, including Hog Island Flat (from Tomales Bay, Calif.), Great Salt Pond Flat (from Salt Pond, R.I.) and Holmes Harbor Flat (from Whidbey Island, Wash.).

* Olympia (Ostrea lurida). This diminutive oyster from South Puget Sound in Washington state isn’t likely to be called anything but “Olympia.”

* Pacific (Crassostrea gigas). This oyster was brought to the West Coast from Japan. Also known as Steamboat Island (Washington), Hog Island (California), Penn Cove (Washington), Coromandel (New Zealand), Quilcene (Washington), Preston Point (California) and Umpqua (Oregon), among others.

* Eastern (Crassostrea virginica). Also known as Blue Point, Robbins Island and Gardiners Bay (New York), Chincoteague (Virginia), Apalachicola (the Gulf Coast of Florida), Malpeque (Prince Edward Island, Canada), Pemaquid (Maine) and Wellfleet (Massachusetts), among others.

* Kumamoto (Crassostrea sikamea). A native of Japan, now grown in Pacific Northwest waters (Oregon, Washington and California). Kumamoto came into popularity in the 1990s and is considered a “beginner’s oyster” for its mild flavor and smaller size (still larger than the Olympia). Although its taste carries the distinguishing characteristics of the water in which it is grown, it is marketed by species rather than by place name. It’s marketed differently from other oysters because it came into popularity so recently that it doesn’t have traditional place names attached to it and because its generic name is so distinctive.

* Portuguese (Crassostrea angulata). The second and distinctly different European oyster, it is native to Portugal but was introduced into Britain and France in the 1860s. Today Brittany is known for its Portuguese oysters. It is not one of the more common varieties found in the U.S.