Eat oysters only in months whose names contain the letter R. That old rule of thumb lingers, seemingly as fundamental as “30 days hath September.”
And yet there I was in late May, clearly not an “R” month, at Glidden Point farm in Edgecomb, Maine, with three oysters, a knife and a tour guide determined to teach me how to shuck them without losing a thumb.
I wedged my knife into the hinge of the shellfish, then realized in horror that this was a living thing that I was about to savage. My guide, Althea Pendur-Thorne, read my mind.
“I like to thank the oyster,” she said to reassure me.
So after I pried the shell open and covered the meat in a tangy mignonette, I whispered, “Thank you, oyster,” before gulping it down.
A Delicious Quest
I had come to Maine to spend a long weekend navigating the Maine Oyster Trail, a collection of more than 80 restaurants, farms and oyster-centered attractions. It seemed like a novel way to visit “Vacationland” just as high season was starting. No lobsters, no lighthouses, no log cabins — let the shellfish lead the way.
My competitive soul couldn’t resist the trail’s Oyster Passport program, which rewards participants with swag based on how many sites they visit. And my geeky heart was set on the beanie awarded for visiting one business in each of the trail’s four regions, which stretch along the coast from south to north: the Maine Beaches, Greater Portland and Casco Bay, the Midcoast and Islands, and Down East and Acadia.
Because of the distance involved, there was no time to spare. I touched down at Portland International Jetport on a Thursday afternoon, hopped right in a rental car and sped about 35 miles south to the seaside town of Ogunquit. I made it to Brix + Brine, an alfresco restaurant with a patio and bar, just in time to sample the three oyster varieties on its chalkboard and then visit the nearby Marginal Way, a must-see cliff walk where I took a quick stroll to soak up some ocean views. The Beaches region was on the books.
The next day, checking off the Midcoast region at Jolie Rogers Raw Bar, in Wiscasset, I met Andy Rogers, a champion shucker and co-owner of the restaurant. Among the varieties he prepared for me was one of his favorites: the Wet Smacks from Maine Ocean Farms, where the shellfish are tumbled by wind and wave action in a process that Mr. Rogers likened to “a gym for oysters.”
One way to judge the fitness of an oyster before opening it is to bang two of them together, he said, demonstrating so that I could hear the sharp, solid sound they should make. And when it comes to eating oysters only in months that have the letter R, he told me, that rule was “not relevant in cold-water areas” like Maine.
Raw Bars and a Rowboat
The Maine Oyster Trail began in 2017 as a paper map directing tourists to a handful of raw bars and oyster farms. The state, synonymous with lobster, was aiming to reap the benefits of a decades-long effort to revive its oyster industry, and the trail, which is now fully online, was a way to “market not only the oysters themselves but oyster experiences,” said Trixie Betz, the outreach and development specialist at the Maine Aquaculture Association.
Farm tours appear often on the trail, which is how I ended up at Glidden Point on Friday afternoon. There, my oyster education continued with a history lesson and fun facts about the shellfish (the best one being that Eastern oysters, the dominant species along the Atlantic coast, commonly start out as male and then, after their first spawning season, live out the rest of their lives as females).
At the farm, which sits on the Damariscotta River, cages on a docked boat brimmed not only with oysters but with green crabs, skittering and brandishing their claws. The river also serves as a cold plunge for the sauna at Glidden Point, which, I discovered to my disappointment, had closed for the season the weekend before my visit.
I ended the day rowing in Belfast’s harbor with Nicolle Littrell aboard a 19-and-a-half-foot dory named Sorcière. Ms. Littrell, who started DoryWoman Rowing in 2021, offers sessions in a range of themes, whether you want to interact with wildlife or go on an excursion during the solstice, under a full moon or at sunset.
As we eased out to the mouth of the harbor, she gently corrected my off-kilter rhythm and awkward form. She also talked up Belfast — she called it “the Mecca of rowing” — where she relocated from Brooklyn in 1999. And she shared her plans to set up a sauna on the shore that would be available to locals as well as her clients after cold-weather rowing sessions. It might seem odd, and perhaps hazardous, to row anytime beyond the summer, but Ms. Littrell promised that it’s “very invigorating” and safe. Besides, she said, “Maine is lovely all four seasons.”
Shelter From the Storm
It turns out Maine is much less lovely in the driving rain. On Saturday, a torrential downpour and a lost set of rental car keys soaked my plans to check off the Acadia region by visiting the Waukeag Neck Oyster Company in Sullivan and taking a boat tour of Frenchman Bay with the local oysterman Graham Platner. The bad luck also put the kibosh on a forest walk with the wilderness guide Jeanne Christie.
Because I couldn’t check off Acadia, I had also failed in my quest for the beanie, which would have come in handy on that chilly, damp day. I consoled myself with some retail therapy at a handful of cute shops in Rockland (which also has a few museums — including one dedicated to lighthouses and two to art — if you should ever need somewhere to shelter from the rain in Maine).
Then I stopped at one of the city’s trail locations: North Beacon Oyster. Getting a seat at the cozy restaurant can be hard, even in the off-season, so I felt a bit of luck returning when I found an open spot at the bar. I celebrated with a pairing of oysters from Unicorn Oyster Farm and a delightful mocktail called a Unicorn Limeade.
The next day, in Portland, with some time to fill before my flight home, I headed to the Shop, a market and raw bar. Its presence was so nondescript — a simple mural announcing “Oysters” in tall red letters — I almost drove right by. But I’m glad I found it for two reasons: One, I was able to check off the Portland region, and two, the memory of its spicy raw scallop and melon salad and a half-dozen of its juicy oysters endure.
The “R” months will return soon enough, and when they do, I hope to complete my mission and earn that beanie. As a bonus, in the fall, oysters store up glycogen for the winter, making them all the sweeter.
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