From Golf.com…
Conventional wisdom holds that you should only eat oysters in months with an ‘r.’ Well, April has an ‘r,’ and the oysters are first-rate right now at The Sea Pines Resort, where the RBC Heritage is taking place this week. In addition to the tournament host course, Harbour Town Golf Links, Sea Pines is home to a lively new restaurant called the Quarterdeck, which stands beside the property’s iconic lighthouse. The Quarterdeck has a locally driven menu, 270-degree sunset views and an oyster bar on its roof, where the oysters will still be good when May rolls around.
That’s the thing about the ‘r’ rule. It’s an oversimplification, according to Benjamin Harris, executive chef of restaurants at Sea Pines. How so?
We asked Harris for an explanation, along with other oyster-related pearls.
The Best Months for Oysters
Like the PGA Tour, oysters have a wrap-around season. Great ones are available year-round. That ‘r’ rule? It is very much applicable to wild oysters, which spawn in the summer, a stage that turns them soft and mealy, making unpleasant eating. In those warm-weather r-less months, the risk of toxins also rises in wild oysters, and, really, who wants to deal with that? But wild oysters aren’t the only oysters out there. You can also get high-quality, farmed-in-the wild oysters, raised in healthy, protected waters. These oysters are abundant off the coast of South Carolina. In months without ‘r,’ those are the oysters Harris serves.
