Lowcountry Oyster Festival at Boone Hall

Imagine, it’s early on a cold Sunday morning and two gigantic tractor trailers filled with 65,000 pounds of oysters roll onto the back lawn…

The Music and Oysters for Wildlife at the Sewee Outpost last Saturday was a complete success.  There were over 800 people there!  The music was fantastic, and the oysters were tasty. However,  January is the month of large oyster roasts, and “the biggest oyster roast in the world” is coming up this Sunday, January 25 at Boone Hall Plantation.  There are usually well over 10,000 people there, but unfortunately they’re not getting the best oysters in the world at the biggest oyster roast in the world.

For an oyster roast that big, they need 65,000 pounds of oysters, which, according to my math, is about 1,300 bushels of oysters!  The word from the Greater Charleston Restaurant Association, which promotes the event, is that there isn’t a big enough supply of local oysters, so they use oysters from Apalachicola, FL that are hauled up I-95 on tractor trailers.  While it may be true that they can’t find enough local oysters, I would like to see some locals there as well (to be fair, they may have some this year) as the oysters from Apalachicola are very bland, bordering on tasteless and certainly not as fresh as oysters picked locally

Tickets for the event are $10 before or $12 the day of.  A bucket of 3 dozen oysters is then $8, and tack on a few more if you need a glove and an oyster knife.  Part of the proceeds do go to charities, but I will cater an oyster roast for much cheaper than that per person, and it would be all you can eat Bull’s Bay Oysters.  You and your friends could then donate $5 each to your favorite local charity (mine is Charleston Kids with Cameras), and you would still come out on top.

I guess my point is that if you’re looking for a big party, or if you want to be able to say you’ve been to the biggest oyster roast in the world, then definitely check out the Lowcountry Oyster Festival at Boone Hall this coming Sunday.  Otherwise, give me a call (843-345-6830), and I’ll deliver a bushel or ten to your house.  I, for one, can already say that I’ve been to the biggest oyster roast in the world, so I’ll be on my back porch in Awendaw enjoying some of Bull’s Bay’s finest.