Foveaux Strait Delicacy · Wild Dredge Oyster
Bluff Oysters
Photo: George Pollard / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
They're flat oysters (Ostrea chilensis), a different species from the Pacific oysters farmed further north, and the Foveaux Strait beds have been dredged commercially since the 1860s.
Bluff oysters are dredged wild from the cold, fast-moving waters of Foveaux Strait and eaten raw, straight from the shell, prized for a meatier, more intense flavour than farmed oysters elsewhere in the country. Southland's fish shops and the annual Bluff Oyster Festival serve them by the dozen each autumn.
Why it's made this way: Oystering built the small port town of Bluff, and a strict season — the fishery runs only from March to August — with catch limits has kept the wild beds going.
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