I bought a new oyster variant to try out from Poissonerie Gidney’s - the Cascumpeque oyster (Crassostrea virginica). More commonly known as the Conway Cup oyster, I think the growers in PEI are trying to both differentiate a subproduction and market by piggybacking on the more commonly-known Malpeque.

It is a nice eastern oyster: the Cascumpeque is not particularly briny and has a more delicate clean ocean taste with a slightly-sweet finish than other PEI production. They’re also not heavy in texture. I like my oysters well, “nekkid”, but the Cascumpeque’s flavor also works well with Tabasco, lemon, cocktail sauce and mignonette. In spite of the fact that they’re a b*tch to open due to their fragile shells, I’d certainly get more of these.

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