Nicki Holmyard
Author’s passion shines through delightful romp around UK farms
OYSTER Isles: A Journey Through Britain and Ireland’s Oysters’ is a delightful read; a clever melange of travelogue, history, facts, recipes, tasting notes, anecdotes, restaurant and oyster bar recommendations, and conversations with many of the UK’s oyster farmers. It is dedicated to oyster folk everywhere.
The book is the tale of a pilgrimage undertaken by Bobby Groves, a passionate oyster lover, and, for the past five years, head of oysters at the well known Chiltern Firehouse restaurant in London. Here, he runs an oyster cart, selling upwards of 150,000 oysters each year.
‘That’s not a bad tally for a restaurant that is not a dedicated oyster bar,’ said Groves, who reckons he has opened several million oysters in his life. And at just 32, he has many millions more ahead of him.
‘I spent my teenage years on the Blackwater River in Essex, helping out at Maldon Oysters, learning how to farm, to depurate, to shuck, to sell, and to promote them.
‘Later, when I was studying, I started shucking oysters on the London markets, selling several thousand each day,’ he said.
Following a short spell back on the farm, Groves took the plunge and set up his own business, Bobby’s Oysters, which specialised in oysters from East Anglia.
‘I was on a mission to put Essex on the map, not as a place that is the butt of jokes, but as somewhere that grows excellent oysters,’ he said.
The Chiltern Firehouse was his first proper restaurant job, but it is one that he adores, and which next year will to take him to New York, Los Angeles and Paris to oversee the setting up of an oyster programme in partner hotel restaurants.
Groves’ work involves talking to customers, and he explained how he loves conjuring up images of oyster farmers and the natural beauty surrounding their oyster beds. People often want to know more, and ask for directions to the wild and largely unknown pockets of the world where they operate.
Over the years, he also grew frustrated at the lack of knowledge about UK grown oysters, especially from foreigners, even though these were the highlight on his oyster menu.
‘So many people ask me for French oysters because the French have done a really good job of promoting them. But to me, asking for a Fine de Clair or a Belon oyster in a UK or Irish oyster bar with a fully stocked menu is like asking for a bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk in a Belgian chocolate shop!’ he said.
Groves was an avid reader of all the oyster books on the market, but he felt that none told the story
from the farmer’s point of view.
‘I realised that I could tell a different story and celebrate the people who farm the oysters; the ones who really put in the hard work.
‘I also wanted to add to the literature on oysters without copying other great books, and the way to do this was to make it into a journey,’ he said.
From a rough idea, Groves slowly developed his mission, deciding to travel on his beloved Triumph Bonneville T120 motorcycle, on a journey that people could engage with or recreate in parts if they were interested.
Out of the blue, as the result of an overheard conversation he was having with his head chef, Groves was introduced to a literary agent in 2017, who loved the originality of the idea, and a book deal soon followed.
‘I thought that finding a publisher would be the really difficult part, but I was lucky in that oysters were becoming popular on the foody scene, and chance played a lucky part,’ he said.
There followed a year and a bit of researching, travelling, eating oysters, writing furiously, working double shifts in between, and getting little sleep, but earlier this year he had a draft for his editor.
His journey had taken him 5,000 miles around the coasts of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and also to Guernsey, Jersey and Herm, meeting suppliers, making new friends, recording life stories, eating in dedicated oyster bars, restaurants and cafes, and encountering some of his heroes.
‘For me, meeting John Bayes, the oyster hatchery legend, was a huge thing, which I liken to Bob Dylan getting to meet Woody Guthrie. It felt like an audience with the Godfather and I am grateful to him for taking time out to talk to me and pass on some of his immense knowledge,’ he said.
The warm welcome he received from all the oyster farmers he met comes across in the book, as does their passion for their work and the need to maintain the unspoiled environment in which they live.
One thing that stands out is that oyster farming is not and cannot be a job; it is a way of life, a passion.
There were highlights and lowlights during the trip, such as the day he had to drive through Devon and Cornwall during Storm Callum to make his appointment with River Teign Shellfish.
‘My boots were completely filled with water and I was soaked to the skin, then I ended up sitting in Matt Session’s house in my underpants, talking to him and his father, Barry, about all things oyster, and eating a hot pasty to warm me up, while my clothes were dried,’ he remembered.
Groves was ‘blown away’ by the beauty of his drive through the Scottish Highlands and islands and Ireland. In the Channel Islands, he found the vastness of the oyster growing beaches hard to comprehend.
His favourite moments of the trip were eating world class oysters on site, with the people who farm and fish them.
In County Galway, he had one of the best food experiences of the trip, eating chowder and oysters at Moran’s Oyster Cottage, but his descriptions of all the oysters he ate are compelling adverts for embracing this mollusc.
There are facts a plenty dotted through the narrative, and they leave the reader eager to read more. Did you know, for example, that the Roman Praetor called Orata, was credited with being the first to lay out artificial oyster bed in Europe, in BC 97? That records show oysters in Ireland first being taxed at Wexford harbour in 1281? Or that oysters from Essex, Kent and Hampshire were mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086? Oyster Isles is definitely something to include on the Christmas list. It can be read from cover to cover, or dipped into when the mood takes. It can certainly be browsed while enjoying a plate of oysters and a glass of wine.
Groves is delighted by the positive response to his first book and is keen to explore other literary ideas. He is also keen to enter oyster chucking competitions.
‘I haven’t been massively interested in them up to now, although the camaraderie amongst the shuckers is tremendous at these events.
‘I have won a couple of local competitions, but never gone for the nationals, and I don’t want to be the only shucker who has never entered. My intention is start next year and to keep going until I win one!’ he said. Oyster Isles: A Journey Through Britain and Ireland’s Oysters by Bobby Groves (hardback £20, 320 pages, Little, Brown Book Group)
“I realised that I could tell a different story and celebrate the people who really put in the work” hard