Oyster Lady

The Oyster Lady (1964), the first movie in CinemaScope
in full color produced in Taiwan

Up and down the west coast of Taiwan, oyster-farming can be found almost everywhere, most notably in JiaYi, Tainan, Yunlin, and Changhua. About 50% of oysters in Taiwan are produced in TungShi 東石 in Jiayi. It has a long history as well, for example, in Tainan, part of Ft Zeelandia was built with cement made with oyster shell ashes. In HenChun, there is a oyster shell island in 大鵬灣 formed from discarded oyster shells over the past few centuries.

Harvesting oysters

Eating oysters raw is not in the Taiwanese culinary culture. In Tamsui, oysters have always been prepared as clear soup. In the now demolished Grand Rotary 圓環 in Taipei, oyster pancakes with or without eggs mixed in the batter were served. These oysters were all small in size. Even today, the most seeded jumbo Clausen Pacific oysters are allowed to grow for only 6 months to one year, as opposed to 2-4 years in north America, before harvesting. Catering to the consumers' preference aside, the giant variety never tastes good anyway, in fact, the flavor is all wrong. Restaurants advertising Taiwanese cuisine in the US also serve 蠔仔煎, albeit with jumbo ones. After a few tries, the verdict is often a "Don't bother".

Oyster pancake/omelet, usually served with a ketchup-like 海山醬

Oysters grown in Tamsui River in Tamsui are now too polluted to eat. The same small oysters with the same distinct flavor, however, can still be found in Sendai, the 宮城三陸牡蠣 Miyagi Sanriku Kaki, This photo shows an example, second from the left, the smallest one:

From left to right: 能登岩牡蠣, 宮城三陸牡蠣, 宮城福貴浦牡蠣, 北海道厚岸牡蠣

Taiwan has 18 varieties of oysters. The taxonomy is best left to the experts, we the consumers only need to know where to get and how to eat them. Charcoal-grilled oysters on the half-shell washed down with Taiwan Beer are most definitely more satisfying than oyster soup. Even better, they can be found in 鹿耳門 in Tainan (where Koxinga's fleet sailed through in 1661 before the first battle against the Dutch) - no need to travel to Sendai.