Whitstable Oyster Festival
Posted by Jilly Bowen on Thu 16th July 2009 at 11:40 AM, Filed in Europe, July
A wonderful week celebrating the history of Whitstable, its heritage – and of course Oysters!
This year’s festival starts on Saturday 18th through to 25th July; and to whet your appetite I’ll start with its history.
As far back as Norman times fishers and dredgers held and annual ceremony to give thanks for their survival and the harvest. It was always held during the closed season for oysters so their business was not interrupted. It was considered a ‘Holy Day’, when the townsfolk attended a formal church ceremony and then the rest of the day passed with feasting, dancing, playing games and contests. The festival was reintroduced in the 1980’s (the industry was almost wiped out in the 1920’s due to disease and over fishing).
Here are a few more facts:
- Whitstable harbour was the world’s first railway connected port.
- The oyster is both male and female, but never both at the same time.
- Spawn is emitted from an oyster in immense quantities, like a puff of smoke, estimated to contain from 800,000 to some millions of organisms.
- The oyster’s worst enemy is the five-fingers (starfish), which can force an oyster shell open.
- The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway - known locally as the Crab & Winkle line, produced the world’s first railway season ticket.
- The sea diving helmet and suit were invented in Whitstable.
- The Whitstable Divers travelled around the world salvaging sunken ships, including the Mary Rose.
- 400 years ago the lower areas of Whitstable were swampy salt marshes - The Sea has tried to take them back several times.
- 2000-year-old oyster shells found in Italy have been proved to have originated in Whitstable.
Full details of events can be found on the Whitstable Oyster Festival website – far to many to include here, so I I’m only highlighting a few;
- Art exhibitions
- Morris Dancing
- Lacemaking
- Creepy crawly – the world of mini beasts
- Live music – including steel bands, Samba, Jazz, old time music hall
- Street entertainment
- Dog shows,
- Workshops – including kite making, jewellery, circus, junior belly dancing, painting, lantern making, gardening…and much more
- Bell ringing
- Oyster eating competition
- Beer festival
- Film shows
A question that is often asked is why Whitstable holds its festival when the native oyster is out of season. We all know the old adage that you should ‘Only eat oysters if there is an R in the month’, and it is certain that the most important date in the oyster industry is September 1st when the oyster season begins.
So why hold an Oyster Festival when Whitstable Oysters are either unavailable or in short supply?
The reason, quite simply, is tradition. This period was the holiday period for the Oyster Dredgers and coincided with St. James’s Day on July 25th, so their celebrations were based around this day. Their yawls and smacks were used to give day visitors trips around the bay thus setting the basis for today’s Festival. Plus it gives our visitors a good reason to come back to the town again, later in the year!
Many thousands of oysters are consumed during the Festival but not all of these are Whitstable oysters in the true sense of the word. This is because indigenous Rock oysters spawn between April and August with some variation according to water temperatures. Spawn, or spat, is the milky substance that contains the millions of baby oysters and makes the oysters unpalatable. Pacific or European oysters, when growing in the colder waters around Whitstable, do not spawn, so they can be eaten throughout the year but the local ones are in short supply and much sought after.
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