Valley oysterman tells of lost industry

Manuel Reyes’s seafood market and restaurant in Port Isabel is peppered with images of a dying way of life.

A fourth generation oysterman, Reyes’ family spent the last century combing the bottom of the Gulf for the sharp-edged exteriors of these culinary gems.

Now, the photographs of decades devoted to catching, processing and selling oysters are a testament to a tradition that’s been lost in the Port Isabel area. Reyes, now 64, says his family was the last that commercially sold local oysters. Now, markets like Reyes Seafood Products sell oysters from Galveston and Louisiana. Though amateur fisherman still pull the creatures up from the ocean floor, local oysters, Reyes says, are not plentiful enough to make money selling.

Reyes Seafood Products still maintains a strong oyster business, as it remains the lone oyster processor in the area, according to Reyes. The hard shells are washed, then shucked from the gelatinous body of the oyster. Reyes sells the processed mollusks to local consumers and restaurants, where they’re grilled, fried, barbecued, cooked into soups, or baked into oyster stuffing come Thanksgiving. The Oyster Bar restaurants in Brownsville and Snodgrass Seafood are customers of Reyes Seafood Products, according to Reyes.

The FDA announced last week that Gulf Coast oysters caught in warm weather months will have to be treated with low-dose radiation or frozen, a process that Reyes says will change the flavor. Oyster suppliers will still be able to import untreated oysters during these months, and conduct business as usual during cold weather months. The rule won’t take effect until 2011.

The rule – which is meant to combat the estimated 15 U.S. deaths per year from a harmful bacteria – stands in contrast to the early days of the Reyes family’s oyster business.

Reyes said that when he was a child in the 1940’s, oysters were caught and sold for days without special refrigeration, as long as they were still alive. But 60 years later, a surprise visit from a health inspector was business as usual.

Since Reyes Seafood Products opened 26 years ago, Reyes says his family has kept the oysters carefully stored at specific temperatures and humidity levels, to ensure they are safe to eat.

In the restaurant section of Reyes’s business, a framed collage of family photos hangs on the wall. In the center are Reyes’s mother and father, smiling and tan after a day on the boat. In the right hand corner is a photo of his brother at 6 or 7 years old, sitting next to a pile of oysters he is working to shuck.

Asked if collecting oysters was a fun childhood activity, Reyes laughed.

"Fun? No. It was a must."

In the early years, Reyes’ family would sell the oysters seaside, straight from the water.

"I’d eat oysters with my friends, my enemies," Reyes said. "Not everyday, you don’t want to overdo it."

In another photo, Reyes’s father guides a small fishing boat through the shallow bay. The bow is filled with oysters.

"That’s how we would do it," Reyes said.

Reyes says he’s getting ready to retire.

"You know, most everyone in these photos is dead," Reyes said, as he looked at the collage. His brother, who helped him run the business, died eight years ago. "There’s power in numbers, no?"

For now, Reyes keeps the memories alive in his business. Massive oyster shells decorate the walls, along with paintings of an oysterman by an uncle.

Some of the artwork is for the benefit of his diners. A mural covers one of the walls of the restaurants, and fishing nets decorate the seafood counter.

But in the back, where the oysters are stored and shucked, there’s a painting of two oysters on the half shell.

"I love them," Reyes said. "Everything. The taste. The income."