American

by Yvette Cardozo

They call the Florida Panhandle “The Forgotten Coast.”  And yes, it  truly is.  It’s not the easiest place to reach  and cell service is from  another millennium.  But wow, there’s so much  more.
The oysters, for one. No, the  central Florida Panhandle did not get washed in oil from the BP
oil spill  disaster.  ”Everyone thinks we did.  We had booms out  there. We’ve checked. There was  and is no oil,” said Van Johnson, mayor of  tiny Apalachicola.

So if you want oysters … and a rich  assortment of fish … this is THE place. It’s also  the kind of place where an antebellum mansion … really,  honestly … built in  the 1800s by the same guy who built a house that is now a  state park, with 4,000  square feet, four bedrooms, and updated kitchen, is on the market for $275,000.  That’s probably 1/10th of what it might have  sold for five years  ago.
It sits there in Apalachicola in all its Victorian  splendor, and a couple  of my friends were seriously thinking about buying  it.
But back to the oysters.
My  friends and I started our foray at a local restaurant called Boss Oyster –  their motto is “Shut up and Shuck.”  I’m still not quite sure about  where that name, Boss, came from.  But if you ask anyone in town for The  Place  for oysters, this is where you will be told to go. It’s one  of those rustic Florida eateries with a large deck over the  water, oilcloth on  the tables and friendly waitresses who call you honey with a  thick southern accent.
The menu has other things.  Meat for those  who must.  Sandwiches.  But the  star of the show is oysters, made 20  different ways. The restaurant has two kinds of oyster  Rockefeller (they call it  Rockefella), plus something called Captain Jack with  bacon, peppers, hot sauce and  cheese, The Cubano with black beans, smoked bacon  and more.  The Gooda Gooda  (flame broiled and topped with caramelized  onions, spicy Creole soy sauce  and smoked cheese) is actually quite  tasty. But to be honest, I think anything other than the  least intrusive addition  on an oyster is wrong. So my fav was, of course, raw on  the half shell  nestled in ice.  And a close second, the Japanoise, chilled  with chives, ponzu, wasabi and flying fish roe.  Even with the wasabi, the  delicate flavor of  the oyster came through.

However, I  wanted to see how these tidbits came to our plate, and the next  morning, I went  out at dawn with two oyster guys, Toby Dalton and Leroy Schaiver. Oyster fishing … is that the term? … is done  here the old way.  Locals  would call it the honest way.  Two men  go out in a wooden skiff that they  probably built themselves.  One drives,  the other stands on the side  holding long, wooden tongs that look like  giant chopsticks with a metal basket on  the end.  The guy with the tongs  dips the basket into the water, wiggles  it in the oyster bed to loosen the  oysters, grabs a batch, swings it up
and  across to a shelf at the bow of the  boat. The other guy then sifts through
the catch, shoving the undersized ones  back.  And this is the last place in  the US where oysters are still fished  with tongs.

“Man, do you work out or something?,” one of  our group asked Toby, who has  a set of biceps a gymnast would envy.

“Nope, just this.”

One of my friends  on a similar outing tried for herself and couldn’t even  lift the tongs with the  basket much less grab 10 pounds of shells and swing  them across a  boat. Of course, I wanted to taste one of those  oysters. Leroy split the shell, scraped the debris off and  handed it to me.  It was
salty and sweet at the same time.  It’s that  sweet undernote that fades
quickly from oysters that are getting old.
“Another?”
But of  course.
Men like Toby and Leroy supply the 15 fish  restaurants in Apalachicola.  Fifteen in a town of less than 2,000 people,  so you can tell how popular fish is here. To  preserve this bounty, they go out every day with strict rules about how  many and how big the oysters can be and where they can get them.  Then, people like me smack their lips over the results in restaurants across the
Panhandle. And there are certainly plenty of fish  restaurants in the Panhandle’s
cities, towns and spots along the  beach.
But there is also more to the Panhandle than  Apalachicola.  There’s Mexico  Beach, which is actually a strip of hotels,  some truly quirky.  The Driftwood Inn (http://www.driftwoodinn.com/), just …  grew.  Peggy Wood started decades ago with a ratty motel.  Today  the place
looks like an antique shop, with innumerable doodads and frills and  just neat … stuff.  Plus the absolutely largest Great Dane dog I’ve ever seen.

Watch out for his tongue.  He will lick you to  death. Off Mexico Beach is Crooked Island, actually a  broken peninsula, where you  will be left totally alone to hunt for shells to  your heart’s content.
And further west is Panama City  Beach, a place so tacky kitsch, it’s
really neat.  There’s an upside down  museum … the BUILDING is upside
down.
There’s mini golf and a Ripley’s  Believe It Or Not museum.  And sunset cruises and more pirate themes than  you really want to see.  But somehow it all works.  It’s very, well,  1950s, and truly sweet. When we weren’t swimming, watching  sunsets and driving, we ate, mostly on
decks over the water, always something  fishy, usually ending with Key Lime pie.

Beware — the  folks here LOVE their fried food.  Fish, oysters, whatever.  It’s all  battered and fried.  Even if you order it grilled, make sure to  tell them  to go light on the butter sauce.  Maybe a bit on the side, so you  don’t  miss a chance to taste it.  The other biggie here is shrimp  … fried, of course, but also grilled and  best, steamed. They’re large and  fresh and sweet. And then, there’s the Key lime pie.

Yes, Key lime pie is from the Florida Keys, nearly 1,000 miles to the  south.  I grew up with Key lime pie and its legend … supposedly concocted  by Florida pioneers who had neither
real milk or real refrigeration.  The  pioneer recipe calls for simply mixing Key lime juice, egg yolks and sweetened  condensed milk till it thickens, then pouring the results into a graham cracker  crust (graham cracker cookies mashed with a LOT of  butter).

Things being what they are these days, you can’t  serve raw eggs, so  restaurants cook their pies.  I remember an old pioneer  variation that had you
put the pie in the oven for 10 minutes to set the curds.  My mom said that
was  okay.   I just shoved mine in the ‘fridge.  How exactly this pie (it is served EVERYwhere in the  Panhandle) became a signature dessert 1,000 miles from the Keys is beyond  me.  But in all the
restaurants I tried, not a single one defiled the pie  with that ghastly green food coloring that the ignorant use.  And most left  the meringue off, bless their honest hearts.  (Okay, yeah, I know some  insist meringue is correct  but … well, that’s a debate for another day). And on that note, both in my trip and here, the story ends.  I ate my last  oyster back at Boss on my way to a friend’s house. We  shared one last Key lime pie.

And I promised to not look  at the scale at home for at least a week.

Info
Apalachicola – http://www.apalachicolabay.org/