Читать книгу The Taste of Britain - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - Страница 323

Colchester oysters are fattened in the Pyefleet, a creek in the estuary of the River Colne. This is good for the purpose, as it has mildly brackish, nutrient-rich water, containing the phytoplankton on which oysters thrive. The name ‘Pyefleet’ has always been jealously guarded by Colchester Borough Council. The derelict oyster beds at Pyefleet, just south of the town of Colchester, were cleared of accumulated silt in the 1960s, an operation which was followed by natural re-stocking. New storage tanks were built. Water for these is pumped from settlement ponds into a storage pond and filtered into temperature-controlled, oxygenated tanks. The water for holding oysters is circulated through an ultra-violet treatment plant, and the water composition is monitored daily. After purification, the oysters are graded, packed in tubs with seaweed, and distributed.

In Whitstable, native oysters are gathered by a power dredge towed by a trawler which flicks the oysters into a cage; all oysters sold in England are purified in clean water under ultra-violet light for 2 days; after this they are graded by eye. Some farming of native oysters is also carried out at Whitstable, where Pacifies are farmed in mesh bags on steel tables.

To be called a Whitstable oyster, the shellfish must come from the coast between Shoeburyness and North Foreland, north Kent.