Shellfish Festival

So the shellfish festival was madness, with tons of producers, growers, chefs, and others hanging around, all to celebrate the mighty crustacean. Though we really enjoyed it, we didn't bring the camera in at all, so unfortunately for you no pictures. Basically a large tent in the harbour of Charlottetown gets a huge influx of people, all fans of the mighty mussel or quirky quahog, all hungry, and all demanding entertainment. One side of the tent has a patio, bathrooms, and a variety of food suppliers, including shuckers, steamers, whole kitchens and more. The other side has a large bar area, a few more suppliers, and a couple information booths. The middle is dominated at one end by a massive stage, on which live music is almost incessantly going. Big time cielidh. Another stage further down the tent hosts cooking demonstrations and speakers, and at the back of this stage is a merchandising and drink ticket seller. The rest of the tent is tables and chairs. Designed for an old fashioned feast.
We met a friend from B.C. there on Friday, Matt, who helps organize the Comox Shellfish festival, and was checking out his east coast counterparts. He represents the Shellfish Growers Association of B.C. with his boss, Roberta. She was judging the chowder competitions everyday for the duration of the festival, an arduous affair I'm sure. It was nice to have someone to wander with so we didn't feel quite so out of place. He also accompanied us out friday night, and was fuel to the fire of the party. We met again Saturday for beers and again Sunday at the festival. He was also kind enough to donate his recently vacated room in the Holiday Inn to us, because it was empty, but couldn't be cancelled. It was awesome to get into civilization again. Hot showers, fresh towels, and the little things like your own bed. Also, television. Not something I often miss, but an occasional dose can reawaken you to how vapid most of it is. That being said, there is some decent programming on if you surf hard enough. Matt, that was awesome, and I'm sure we'll see you again. Back to the festival itself.

We tried a couple different preparations of food, unfortunately, the fried clams were a bit of a disaster. For a whopping 14$, a plate of clams with less clam meat than the 5$ steamed clams is put forth, with fries that are without a doubt frozen product, and not even a sauce to speak of. Besides that dissapointment, everything else was superb. For 5$ or 7$ respectively, you could dine on basically anything that caught your eye. We had a couple trays of steamed shellfish, a veritable bath of caesars, and watched the live music go. We returned Sunday to watch the chowder competition and the oyster shucking competition. The chowder competition had an impressive amount of competitors, though many opted to commit a classic chowder with few having a little twist on them. Funnily enough, a friend of mine from Vancouver was competing, though neither of us knew the other would be there. He works at the Shangri-La hotel, for Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Vancouver restaurant. I said hello and hung out with him a while before he had to leave to pack his bags, as his flight was leaving soon back to Vancouver.

Following Trevor's departure, we watched the oyster shucking competition, which was really incredible. The guys and girls up there shuck fast, and don't play around. The fastest time was 55 seconds, though it's likely he won't win based on presentation of the oysters. After competing for time, the oysters are meticulously graded for preservation of juice, general appearance, checked for any tears in the meat, and so on. It's an intense scrutiny of your plate, so you better treat those oysters nice. Most of the competitions are won or lost based on appearance. A couple recognizable faces were there, including Oyster Bob, who lost the competition in Comox due to mangling his oysters, but was by far the fastest in the west coast competition. Another face was the owner of Whalesbone in Ottawa, who I've seen around at a couple culinary happenings. They do an amazing job of the competition, music, filming and projection, and having an announcer for every head to head battle. I was really impressed by the whole set-up. Fabian met John Pritchard ,a local chef and gentleman who would take us on a wild culinary jaunt the following day.

That night we relaxed and took it easy on the liver, sensing the following day, which happened to be my birthday, might turn into a bit of a pickling session. We could not have been more correct.