OYSTER DAY

Hokitika Guardian, 1 July 1930, Page 2

OYSTER DAY

The opening of our oyster season recalls a quaint custom which is still ket up in the old English town oi Colchester, in Essex. Situated 011 the great east road, a little over fifty miles from London, Colchester has been famous from time immemorial for the large, Succulent oysters which abound in the broad estuary of the River Colne on which it stands. Consequently every year, at the opening of the oyster season, it, is ecustomary for the Mayor and other dignitaries of the town to. proceed by .steamboat to the .estuary, whore the Gnie-hondured ceremony of serving the oysters on the shell is duly observed and an ‘ ‘oyster feast” is held on hoard with much gusto.

A t s Colchester is the oldest recorded town in England and was not only one of the most important centres 'in the days of the Roman invaders hut also a flourishing settlement in, still morp ancient British times,, one wonders how many centuries of gourmets have sought it out for the. sake of the delectable, shellfish, and how much of its popularity with those notorious lovers’pf good food and extravagant dishes. the Romans themselves, was due M the same cause. If cobble-stones and ancient plastered Avails could speak doubtless the longest mid most intrinruinnr record of the Colchester oyster would be told by the famous Red Lion Tnn.'tbe story of Avhich dates hack nearly two thousand years. Orieinally n luxurious Roman dwelling stood on this historic spot, and not long ago tAvo very fine specimens of elaborate Roman, mosaic flooring Avere excavated from beneath the inn, -AA'liP-h stands now.' as Its Roman predecessor !,stood before It,-* in the,.centre, of the town. Then camera jd { ug parish nfr- • ntes/ a rid ydfi stijji -Wi II in mi;,!be COll- - aifd hisfarhijes. In the fourteMth century,'nccordjnc 7 TyTradßion. (IpA place, became th<vjbpW?Fjof ; rhnn I 's. a massive of that. Hjjkprl .is'-'stii.jgTb‘' in ( (t?ie vnult.^ydgstpreyed: timbered and a bop* mBBBIm was finally enlarged and inn.' Snnnre mpllioned old carved numerous elaborated and ceilings relics of the Tudor Colchester rethe inn, and in iccijsr it. isas an “nnneyent ’pip.” common seal vc'rne. Tn 1756 it ptyce for one of the for in tint year one James advertised that on TuesihiAVeMn lie would'/’set •lit “for the|.Red - Lyon Inn/fyt Colchester Avith, S. -Stage Cart and able horses, to be at tlje Biill Inn, Leadenhall Street,’London, on Wednesday ,at one o’clock.” LateiCfsfill, it. became, ifideed the great coaching and posting inn of the every day a score or so of coaches',fAA’oiild-* clatter up to its hospitablebdooVs imif through the great carved gateway into the cobbled courtyard. . Hence it Avas probably witliin the ancient Avails of this liistoric house that, the famous oysters, noAv publicly sampled every year by a mayor of the tAventieth century, and perhaps first “tried out”, by the ancient Britons, formed theb&r'oAvning glory of the meal for and uncouth Dnr»alike, for;French connoisseurs and sil-ent-footed, niqiiks. for,.|ober toAvnsfolk and Aveary and boisterous revellers in the days of “Merrie England.”, and so through all the periods of English history doAA 7 n to modern times. ,b«--Mfe