Kumanichi reports on the opening of “oyster huts” in the Ashikita-Minamata region. These are not where oysters lodge while out and about but where humans grill them over charcoal (if you’re an oyster reading this, pay attention). The price is 1,500 yen per kilo, and other items such as crab are on the menu.
The article notes that the region began cultivating oysters in 2013 but gives no background, so here it is. In the 1930s, fishermen from Oregon were looking for a suitable oyster to cultivate and settled on a strain from Minamata, a small, hardy, sweet strain now known in the US as the “kumamoto oyster.” In the 1960s, due to over-harvesting and pollution, the strain went extinct in Japan. In 2013, oyster seeds (that’s what they call ’em) were repatriated from Oregon to the Yatsushiro Sea and had reached sufficient size from last year for human munching.
Several such hut clusters exist. Drive or take the Orange Railway. - William
