OysterFest: Not Just “Aww, Shucks!”

I had the good fortune to stumble upon the Asbury Park OysterFest last weekend while doing my best to deny the departure of summer. In addition to slurping down egregious amounts of fresh-shucked shellfish, I noticed a few new food festival trends that took root in the classics...

CLASSIC TREND: Not just French fries but all kinds of deep-fried foods. What is it about a summer festival that makes people want to batter foods and toss them into a deep fryer? Well, deep frying is fast and makes everything taste good. Plus, a fryer is easy to transport, doesn’t blow smoke in your face and is easy to manage: all you need is a generator and some oil.

Oysterfest’s most notable fry vendor was Point Pleasant’s Chippy’s, selling fried calamari, fried Oreos, fried shrimp and fried scallops.

NEW TREND: Chipstix. Straight out of England came this neat little whirligig of a machine that had festival-goers asking, "Where’d you get that?"

At the Chipstix booth a machine cut a whole potato into a long thin spiral that is skewered on a long stick. Toss the spiralled potato into the deep fryer for a few minutes, pull it out, sprinkle with various flavored salts and voila: scrumptious potato chips on a stick. Or kind of a cross between thin French fries and potato chips, yet in the form of a one-piece spiral on a stick. (See photo.) Yes, it’s as fun as it looks.

CLASSIC TREND: Zeppoles and funnel cake. It simply isn’t a Shore summer festival without fried dough dusted with confectioner’s sugar. Whether you fry your dough in balls or in drizzles, whether you serve it in a bag or on a plate, you’re still dousing the stuff with sugar and eating it with a smile. You can’t mess with this classic.

NEW TREND: Brick oven pizza. Pittstown’s Pure and Simple Mobile Pizza Oven was a sight for jaded  eyes; this wood-fired brick oven bakes at 800 degrees; the perfect temperature for a Roman-style pie with a blistered crust, melty cheese, sweet red sauce and fresh basil. This truck might be even better than your neighborhood pizza joint.

BTW, Belmar boasted three of the most creative food booths: 10th Avenue Burrito Company offered pork mole tacos and lobster mac-and-cheese — not your average festival food. The 10th Avenue folks recently appeared on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

Belmar’s Ragin’ Cajun offered alligator, jambalaya and gumbo. (What does alligator taste like? I would say kangaroo.) There was even a booth for real Texas barbeque, thanks to Belmar’s Jersey Shore BBQ.

CLASSIC TREND: Fresh-shucked oysters and clams. An oyster festival has to offer these briny delicacies, but I didn’t know they’d be this good. Highlands’ Lusty Lobster knows it’s way up and down the East Coast; they offered Maine lobsters, shrimp cocktail and platters of plump oysters.

NEW TREND: Hand-rolled cigars. While the shuckers pried open their catch with a well-placed knife and some elbow grease, there was something genteel going on. I watched the fascinating handiwork of the artisans making cigars at the Jiminez Cigar boutique booth. There were men, there were smiles, there was the unmistakeable scent of tobacco and wood; and paraphernalia like cigar cutters and humidors. It was handmade, civilized and classic. Okay, maybe not a full-blown trend, but an intriguing novelty.

Asbury Park’s OysterFest will be back next year, for its sixth annual festival, and a portion of proceeds benefit The Boys & Girls Clubs of Monmouth County.

Chippy’s Fresh French Fries
Point Pleasant Beach Boardwalk

Chipstix
www.chipstix.us
Wildwood, NJ

10th Ave Burrito Co.
www.tenthaveburrito.com/
Belmar, NJ

Ragin Cajun
www.ragincajunnj.com
Belmar, NJ

Jersey Shore BBQ
www.jerseyshorebbq.com
Belmar, NJ

Pure and Simple Wood-Fired Artisan Pizza and Bread
Pittstown, NJ

Lusty Lobster
www.bestlobster.com
Highlands, NJ

Jiminez Cigar Boutique at Prudential Center
www.jimineztobacco.com
Newark, NJ

Allison Fishman is a cooking teacher, TV host and author of You Can Trust A Skinny Cook. For delicious humor & recipes, visit allisonfishman.com or follow @allisonfishman on Twitter.

 

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