Day 1
What a fantastic start to my seafood Jersey trip! A massive thanks to the Fishmongers’ Company, the Master Fishmonger Standard, the Fish Heroes’ scheme, and the Jersey fisheries officials for organising everything and inviting me along.
Today we visited the wonderful Jersey Oyster company, a 3rd generation family of Oyster producers with a state of the art facility on the island, and a passionate team that tends to the oysters from seed to harvest, with excellent quality control standards, and pristine waters to nurture these wonderful shellfish in. Due to the geography of Jersey, with no lakes or rivers, this produces a truly unique flavour of oyster, which is truly distinguishable and provides a delicious taste and high meat content.
It was fascinating to learn and see the entire process from beginning to end and get a better understanding of how technical it is. From the importance of water quality, state of the art depuration and the way the oysters are carefully arranged in their beds and moved to different areas of the shore to produce consistent sizes, shapes, and high meat to shell ratios for market.
After visiting the immaculate, purpose-built facility and neatly arranged holding beds, we headed to Jersey’s Seymour Tower. This idyllic tower was constructed in 1782, following the battle of Jersey, and is almost 2 miles from the shore. With the tides retreated, the landscape looks almost alien/other worldly, and provided a stunning location for a shucking and cooking demonstration for these stunning oysters. I had the pleasure of shucking these prized shellfish, while the highly talented chef Katie Prigg, prepared a selection of accompaniments to serve with them, 2 cold recipes and a wonderful flavoured butter to serve with the oysters on the BBQ, and of course, with produce as good as this, there was plenty of the ‘purist’ combination (as is or with lemon). They were all to die for, and needless to as,y we nearly ate up 2 boxes in no time, and I may or may not have accidentally eaten around a dozen to myself during the shucking too.
On the trip back to the next set of beds, we got one of the vehicle stuck in the sand and had to get one of the tractors to tow it out after failing to dig and push it out by hand, just in the nick of time as the tide had turned and was coming back at pace. We ventured further out to sea to witness the skilled team from JO, hand-turning the oysters, which helps make sure they grow to a consistent shape and size, before heading back to the shore, navigating the many rocks to get back to the slipway.
It’s reassuring to see the UK’s world leading aquaculture standards in person, and highlights/cements why we have such unbeatable quality fish & shellfish, that is the envy of the rest of the world. I’m certainly very proud to be able to work with and eat such great produce from across the nation.
Day 2
A jam packed Day 2 of our Jersey trip started off meeting up with Alex Plaster from Jersey fisheries, he took us down to St Heliers Victoria pier, to visit a fantastic independent fishmongers called The Fresh Fish co, we met up with the team there, who gave us a quick tour and talk through their operation, before skilled fishmonger Louis, gave us an exceptional Spider Crab picking masterclass. We discussed the fact that Spider Crabs are such a great value, an underutilised species, with lots of succulent meat in the carapace, legs, that they are often 30 %+ cheaper than a Brown Crab, and why more people should be eating them. As an invasive species, they are seen as a pest, but that shouldn’t mean we don’t want them on our plates.
We had the talented Katie Prigg, an award-winning young chef from the renowned Goring hotel in London, gave us a brilliant demonstration on splitting a cooked Lobster, which our 1st class videographer captured.
We then headed into the Aqua-mar facility further down the key, a major shellfish merchant on the Island. Their holding tanks were full with lots of high quality Crabs, both Brown & spider and lots of wonderful Lobsters too.
Alex then talked us through the sustainability of each species, highlighting the MSC status of the Lobster fishery, the life cycles and the measures in place to protect future fishing stocks on the island. Alex is clearly exceptionally passionate about his role, and certainly knows his stuff, with everywhere we went, there was always someone who recognised him, and collared him for a chat or shout some banter over, he has certainly gone above and beyond making this trip as rewarding as possible for all involved, that’s for sure.
Afterwards, we packed up our gear and got back in the Land Rovers and headed towards the iconic St Catherines harbour, the drive along the coastline was beautiful, and on such a clear sunny day we could easily see the French coast and all of Jerseys wonderful scenery, there are definitely jersey Royals on every patch of spare land you can see, with good reason too, they are like white gold.
Once we arrived at St Catherine’s harbour, we met up with a local fisherman who fishes for Lobsters, Crabs and a very, very skilled Scallop Diver. We steamed out of the harbour aboard the Loyal Friend to one of his favourite diving spots to begin fishing.
Speaking to Leo from Scholefield Scallops was awe-inspiring, and definitely reassuring to learn about his true passion for being a sustainable custodian of the sea. He was fiercely keen to emphasise that he is fishing for the future of both his family and others too, safeguarding the stocks for future generations, so they can continue to thrive and provide healthy, high-quality food for many, many years to come.
