Road Trip: Oyster sex, the BP oil spill and chocolate.

Eastpoint is not a ghost town, but walking down the street you might think so. That's because the heart of this city beats beneath the surface — in almost 8,000 acres of oyster beds. What you aren't seeing is an aquaculture industry that pumps $1 million into the local economy every year. Franklin County, the county surrounding Apalachicola and other seafood towns in the panhandle, produces 10 percent of the country's oysters — and most of Florida’s. 

What's so cool about the county — the third smallest, populationally speaking, in Florida — is that the kind of tourism they do here is so unlike what we see along most of Florida's sand-soaked coast. In this part of the state, oyster bars, not beach bars, run the length of the water. And the bars are of two ilk: winter and summer. So if you come here, you come to eat oysters. Period. 

Two perennial favorites, Boss Oyster and Up the Creek Raw Bar, lie on the water: Up the Creek is on Scipio Creek, which flows into the Apalachicola right about where Boss Oyster sits on the river. Both places will serve you oysters that were in the water the night before, and even if you've eaten fantastic oysters before, even if you've eaten fantastic Apalachicola oysters before, nothing compares to the quite-recently-deceased Apalachicola oyster — even in summertime.

Right, so remember how we used to think you could only eat oysters in months ending with "R"? That's not true anymore. Tongers, or oyster fishermen, harvest the winter oyster bars October through June, and the summer oyster bars July through September. The transition from wild to farmed oysters makes this possible — and, for my money, safe (I eat raw oysters more than I eat chicken, and I've gotten sick from chicken but never oysters). The idea that you can't eat oysters in the summer has more to do with oyster sex than safety: Oysters spawn in the summer, which means you have a better than average chance of getting a slimy oyster. Don't think too hard about what that slime really is and you'll find the oysters wildly delightful in July. 

Why Franklin County? Why Eastpoint and Apalachicola and not, say, the oysters I've cut myself on in Boca Ciega Bay? It has to do with the Apalachicola River. The Apalachicola is what's known as an alluvial river, meaning its levels are tied to rainfall. The river spends part of the year disconnected from many tributaries and with much of the bottom exposed (or almost exposed), but when the rains come, they connect the river to all its parts, the waters swell, and things wash down the river toward Apalachee Bay. What kinds of things? Sediments, bugs and organic matter, all of which mix with salt water and become the best possible food for oysters, which then become the best possible food for us. Oysters grown elsewhere don't taste like Apalachicola oysters, because the food they get is different.

It's a shame then, that the oyster industry took such a hit with the BP oil spill, right?

Well, not exactly. See, the oil didn't decimate the bay, but BP paid tongers in case it did. In many cases, it paid them so much that some of them could afford to take a year off. This, as you may well imagine, left a lot of perfectly healthy oysters un-tonged, and a lot of restaurants (like Boss Oyster, which, like many quality seafood places in the panhandle, has its own boats) without people to collect the oysters. Across the state — and the country — Florida oyster prices skyrocketed, and everyone thought, well, of course — oil. Except not so much: The oysters were — and remain — healthy. It was the temptation of just enough money that hurt the industry.

What's sad about this misconception is that Apalachicola goes to great lengths to keep the bay healthy. Unlike most of the oyster world, dredges don't go near Apalachicola — too severe for the shallow bay. Instead, laws dictate that oystermen use tongs to collect oysters, which not only protects the bay bottom, it serves as a delightful anachronism that also typifies the town: Apalachicola dates back to Panfilo de Narvaez's explorations in the 1500s. Yes, the same Narvaez who has a sign by Jungle Prada. 

One final note: The John Gorrie Memorial Bridge (so named for the father of air conditioning) connects Eastpoint and Apalachicola; cross it just after dawn and you can see the boats heading out. In between rounds of oysters, saunter downtown in Apalachicola and look for the Apalachicola Chocolate Company, where you can find, if it's your lucky day, dark chocolates made with nearby Tupelo honey. Trust me, a couple dozen oysters with a chocolate chaser makes for the perfect summer day.

This article appears in Apr 27 – May 4, 2017.