Wood-smoked oysters, rope-grown and harvested by hand in Galicia. The oysters grow in the nutrient-rich waters of the Ría Arousa on the Galician coast, and are plump and rich in flavour, a signature of shellfish from this Spanish region.
Recipe tip: try them on squares of sourdough with cream cheese and a squeeze of lemon. Find other tinned shellfish recipes here.
About Carmelo: Carmelo is a luxe edit of Iberia’s finest tinned fish curated by Patrick Martinez, the founder of The Tinned Fish Market. It must come from marine ecosystems where sea life thrives. It must be fished seasonally, sustainably, and must be prepared by hand. This is the Carmelo manifesto.
More about the oysters
•Ropes are seeded by a small team of oyster farmers in Cambados and then suspended from rafts or bateas that float in the estuary. The estuary is divided into allotments farmed by local fishermen. In the shallow waters where clams and razor clams are harvested the allotments are marked out with poles; in the deeper waters where the oysters grow, the rafts themselves mark out the space.
•The oyster farmers keep a close eye on the bi-valves as they grow, intermittently hoisting the ropes from the water to check they’re thriving. The oysters are harvested when they reach the required size and they’re as meaty and plump as the cannery we’ve partnered with ask. This doesn’t happen to order. It’s determined by the level of nutrients in the water, the currents, the water temperatures. We can wait months sometimes for these incredible oysters.
•Once at the cannery, which sits across the water from Cambados, the oysters are expertly shucked and smoked and packed in olive oil by hand, and each tin is sealed using a pedal seamer.
