Rama at the Hama Hama

Lissa James can throw one heck of a party.

If you missed it last weekend, then put it on your calendar for 2013. Usually the first low-tide weekend in May, the Hama Hama Oyster Rama* is a day-long fundraiser for the Hood Canal Education Foundation in Lilliwaup, Wash., complete with oyster and wine tastings, a shucking contest, beer garden, a variety of shellfish culinary experiences, cooking and history seminars, trivia contest, arts and crafts, live music, and best of all, the opportunity to dig your own clams and pick your own oysters for less than the sponsoring Hama Hama Oyster Company's retail price.

Arriving promptly at 11am last Saturday when the u-pick started (time is of the essence as the incoming tide waits for no one), Tim and I dug at least six pounds of clams and gathered six dozen more oysters.

One of the guys who checked us out was so impressed with our foraging skills that he said, "Wow. Do you want a job?"

Believe me, I was tempted. There is something about going outside into the fresh air to get food that feels visceral to me.

Not everyone likes oysters. I understand that. It just has never occurred to me not to like them. I've been eating oysters, specifically the Pacific oyster, for as long as I can remember, and I can never get enough. Raw or cooked, it doesn't matter.

For most of my childhood, some of my mother's family's get-togethers took place on the beach where Eagle Creek meets the Hood Canal in Lilliwaup, just a few short miles south of today's Rama site at the Hama Hama Oyster Company. Back then, the day always included a picnic, but more importantly, a gathering of oysters to bring back home and pan fry or make stew. To this day, the smell of low tide makes me want to inhale that much deeper.

Part of the day at Eagle Creek was spent walking down the dead end country road across the highway to see the house my grandfather built, where my mother and her seven siblings grew up. At some point, the house had burned, and all that was left were charred timbers, but we always walked to the site anyway.

I'm not sure when my grandparents moved from California to Lilliwaup or even why exactly, although there were some of her extended family that also lived in the area when my mom was a child. Three years after my mother was born in California in 1919, however, the Robbins family of Lilliwaup created a timber business, the Hama Hama Company, which later expanded into oyster farming in the 1950s.

While my mother and her siblings grew up and moved away, and my grandfather moved on to Bremerton and remarried after my grandmother died, the Robbins family stayed put. As it happened somewhere along the line, the Robbins intermarried with the James family who lived on the same road where my mother's once did. Long before I met Lissa James, who runs the Hama Hama Oyster Company with her brother Adam, my mother told us of a Jack James who frightened her and her sister Jessie by jumping out of the woods along the road where the two girls walked alone in the dark. Scared out of their wits, the two of them ran screaming toward home.

Today, Lissa's parents, Helena and Dan James, live down that same road, and it's a real privilege to be able to say that I know them.

Of that family, I really only know Helena and Lissa well. Helena is a fabulous gardener and nature artist, and Lissa is a truly amazing, articulate young woman who can do anything she sets her mind to. I first met her when she interned at Copper Canyon Press a few years ago, but since then she's been steadily elevating the Hama Hama oyster to the world-class status it deserves. She's also a great writer who keeps a blog about her bivalve experiences and has published stories in High Country News. One in particular is titled "The Education of an Oyster Farmer."

What makes Hama Hama oysters special are the pristine tide flats where they grow. "We are our own upstream neighbor," Lissa once told me. "If something goes wrong, it's likely to be our own fault. It's a really clean tasting oyster. It's a nice expression of a healthy estuary."

Always moving, always busy, Lissa seemed to be everywhere at the Rama, which explains why she told me four days later that she was still suffering from "deep Rama fatigue."

After the u-pick, I found Lissa behind the grill in the food line, running back and forth from the kitchen bringing out more oysters and chowder. Later, she gave a demonstration on how to prepare one of those monstrous geoduck clams (gooey-duck) for cooking. I had geoduck in the delicious chowder they served, but it's not something I generally seek out. Still, the information was useful...for something. I did not know that the "skin" was peeled, for instance. Now that I know that, I'm a lot more comfortable with eating some of that elephant-wrinkly phallic delicacy.

First, Lissa told us to insert a paring knife at the base of the neck between the shell and the body. Run the knife along the edge of the shell, and cut through the abductor muscle that attaches the clam to the shell. Take the geoduck out of its shell, and cut off the stomach. The stomach is particularly gross looking, so you shouldn't have any trouble determining what part that is. Finally, blanch the geoduck in super hot but not boiling water, and the skin pulls right off.

The cooking demonstration also included a primer on preparing oysters for pan fry:

Pan-Fried Oysters

For each dozen oysters, beat two eggs and prepare cracker crumbs by throwing some saltines in a blender and giving it a whirl. Add salt and pepper to the crumbs to taste. Dip the drained oysters in the egg wash, coat the oysters with the crumbs. Put in the refrigerator for at least a half hour. Fry until golden brown in about 1/4 inch of canola oil heated to 370 degrees in a pan, about 1-2 minutes on each side. Serve with your choice of tartar or cocktail sauce and lemon wedges. 

Also at the Rama, the Hama Hama Oyster Company kindly provided a sheet of basic oyster recipes for folks to try at home:

Bacon-Wrapped Oysters

Ingredients: shucked oysters, bacon
Equipment: skewers
Soak skewers in water. Partially cook bacon on the stove or in a microwave, but do not let it get too crisp. Wrap raw oysters in bacon and skewer. Grill until both the oysters and bacon are thoroughly cooked.

Baked Oysters

Ingredients: oysters in the shell, parmesan cheese, butter
Remove the top shell of the oyster. Top oyster with a pad of butter and teaspoon (or so) of shredded parmesan cheese. Bake in 400 degree oven until cheese is crisp. As an alternative: add a few slivers of chopped garlic to each oyster before baking.

Grilled Oysters

Ingredients: oysters in the shell, butter, garlic
Equipment: oyster knife, waterproof glove, tongs, small pan for melting butter and garlic
Heat the grill to medium heat. Place oysters on the grill cupped side down, hinge pointing away from you. Oysters will cook open in about 10 minutes. Once oysters are open, use the knife and the glove to pry off the top shell. Spoon some melted garlic butter over the oysters and serve. Note: if the grill is too hot, the oysters will cook without opening. If they've been on the grill for 10 minutes and are spitting out lots of liquid and sound hollow when tapped with the knife, then they're likely cooked inside. Shuck open to serve.

When Tim and I got back home that day, I made potato salad, garlic bread, and fried some of the oysters we picked for dinner. The next night we steamed some of the clams, dipped them in garlic butter, and ate them with roasted asparagus and green salad made with kale I grew in the garden. 

After we finished dinner the second night, Tim said, "We're going to have to do this again next year."

You can bet on that.

*Rhymes with mama. Don't argue with me about it.