EP 424. Hama Hama Oysters a 6th-Generation Family Tradition

 

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere where I’m on the Olympic peninsula. Oh, we got to start over because here comes lunch. Give me a rundown what all we just had a sample platter at a pre episode. What did I just eat that was amazing?

Adam James: Okay. Yeah, well, we’re sitting in one of A frames here. People always ask me, where’d you ever come up with the idea to build these things? And I’m like, haven’t you ever spent night in the doghouse? Just a big dog house, nothing too creative. But yeah, Sarah just brought out some of our fresh shuck oysters. We had Hama Hamas, blue pools and oysters grown by Ian child inlet. We had a platter of roasted oysters with that garlic butter.

Ramsey Russell: I’d have called them barbecue. They were amazing.

Adam James: Yeah. We’re roasting them in an oven. But yeah, generally that’s a barbecue. Most northwestern will call it barbecue, we always usually run into the southerners that say that’s not barbecue, that’s grilled. They’re always correct us on that one. Then we had a pan of the purple savory clams in Yodel and Broth. That’s a friend of mine, Dan. He’s got a restaurant in Leavenworth called Yodel and Broth and he makes the broth that those clams are in and they really help them pop. But the clams are selling themselves. These clams showed up about 10 years ago, took us forever to figure out markets for them, they’re a great clam, but people don’t like to change. They were used to the Manila clam, that’s what they were accustomed to. We had to make them real cheap, and of course when you make something cheap people think it’s crap because that’s their perception of quality. And then you make it cheaper and then they start to fly out the door. We actually almost ran out of those clams last year and it’s kind of a funny story. The price is coming up on them. They get out there, they got great shelf life and a good yield. I think we also had a couple dungeonesque crab cakes.

Ramsey Russell: Amazing. They were really good. Folks, welcome back again to Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast, I am in the Olympic peninsula at Hama Hamas Oysters. Actually I’m at the Hama Hamas Oyster saloon and it’s just ate a great lunch. Today’s guest is Adam James, 6th generation Washington state oyster and shellfish guy. Thank you for lunch. It was good. Best I ever had. Now look, this is the 3rd or 4th night I’ve been in Washington out here on the Olympic peninsula and I’ve eaten your shellfish product every single day I’ve been here over at Dave Drury’s house. We’ve been putting a hurting on them. I think his wife told us we got to bring more clams home tonight so we’re going to do it again.

Adam James: Yeah, he likes to support us in our off season.

Ramsey Russell: Where do you start? 6th generation how far back can you recall your family history farming shellfish here in Washington state?

Adam James: Yeah, great question. So the farming of shellfish really didn’t start until the 40s here. We originally started out as a timber company. Property was purchased by my great great grandfather back in the midwest area. He’s based out of St. Paul. At that time, Washington state had a vast tract of timberland. They saw it as an asset and they wanted to get settlers out here. They wanted to get folks out here, get towns built, bridges built, schools built, communities established. So they were selling land, sheep, kind of like the homesteading act. And great great grandfather bought 5000 acres sight unseen and started adding on to it with the idea that someday the family would move out here. Little do you know that we’d move out here and not leave.

Ramsey Russell: When did it transfer from dug, fur, timber to oysters?

The Role of State and Federal Lands in the Hama Hama Watershed

So we’re upstream and we’re downstream and on the upstream side we’re still very much managing the tree farm for long term forestry outlooks. There’s a battering of houses up there that family live in and then that’s bordered in by state land and federal lands. So 95% of the Hama Hama watershed is actually owned by you and me in the federal side and state side.

Adam James: Well, if my brother was here, he’d say it hasn’t transferred. The firewood we got over there in the pit is from him, so we’re still very much a tree farm. And I think what makes this place unique as an oyster farm is that, the watershed ownership component. So we’re upstream and we’re downstream and on the upstream side we’re still very much managing the tree farm for long term forestry outlooks. There’s a battering of houses up there that family live in and then that’s bordered in by state land and federal lands. So 95% of the Hama Hama watershed is actually owned by you and me in the federal side and state side. But the rest and the part that’s closest to the farm is also owned by the Hama Hama company and managed by them. So, we like to think that, oysters and us, we are what we eat. Oysters are drinking water, and I’ve read a couple studies specific to oysters in this area where they look at isotopes, right? So isotopes are the building blocks of, you can trace carbon and look at like what percentage of the carbon is in the oyster is from terrestrial plant matter, same with nitrogen. And some gals from NOAA came through about 10 years ago and did that and they found that they’re actually – we’ve been saying this was like a marketing thing for a while, but they were finding like alder leaves, trace organic particulate matter in our oysters from upstream. So, oysters are very much, there’s provenance to them, the flavor, it’s not just well, for the most part, it is what’s in the water, and the salinity, the diet that they’re eating, which is not just algae, it’s also particulate organic matter. Right now, we’re looking out at Hood Canal on the Hama Hama river delta, and you guys can see oysters in the water out there, I mean, it’s flat calm, right? It’s glass. There’s not a lot of algae in the water here. There’s no major cities along this body of water. So, we don’t have a lot of nitrogen in enter in the water. The people that are farming here are very thoughtful about it and the oysters tend to take a lot longer to grow here than other grow areas. But I think in my mind, lots of things get better with age. And the challenge with oysters is that the market wants small oysters. So how do you grow an old small oyster? And the trick is the right amount of stress. Not enough stress to kill the oyster, but enough to harden the shell, develop the meat, and produce that experience that people keep coming back to. As kids growing up around here, my cousin Jesse likes to say, we knew when we were broke because it was oysters for dinner, because you literally, park your van on the hill over there and never go to the supermarket again. $10, you get your recreational shellfish license, and it’s 25 clams a day and 24 oysters. So, these Pacific oysters that we’re farming were initially introduced from Japan around 1900. And again –

Ramsey Russell: That’s crazy.

Adam James: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: I mean, I would have just assumed had you not told me, because he mentioned Manila clams the other day. I’m like, Manila doesn’t sound Washington. And I don’t know, why am I surprised that it’s not all native or indigenous oysters and shellfish? Not to interrupt you but I just couldn’t figure that out.

Adam James: Yeah. No, that’s a great question. Coming from the south, most of the shellfish, the quahog, little neck cherry stone clams, the Atlantic Virginia Gulf oyster, those all are native. And so that is a great question. Why hasn’t the same thing happened there? They tried, I think, for years to figure out how to introduce lobster and Atlantic salmon. I mean, people did all kinds of crazy things back in the day. You look around you, we got rocks just like Maine, why wouldn’t this work? So I think there were some folks from Japan living in the Olympia area, Japanese Americans, and they’re looking around, they’re like, this feels a lot like home. And so they sent notes to family. It was a 17 day passage by steamship, they thought the operation failed. The oyster showed up, the mature oysters were dead. They still threw them in the bay. The story that I’ve always heard is that the spat, the seed oysters on the shell survived, and that gave birth to this major industry of folks in Japan setting spat on shell, hanging, building elaborate bamboo trestles, hanging shell from it. Tide would come in, oyster larvae would attach to those shells, they’d box it up and ship it to the Puget Sound.

Ramsey Russell: I’ll be dang. And what about these Pacific clams you were talking about? These clams. That was a great story.

The Ever-Changing Purple Savory Clams

Everything around here has evolved together in a balanced system.

Adam James: Yeah, we just ate the purple savory clam there. I mean, being a farmer, it’s all about just adapting to the world, right? Like, we’re only in control of so much. And we live here, this area. I mean, you’re just trying to be resourceful. So these clams that we just had were folks call them varnish clams, purple savory mahogany clams, there’s various names for them. They showed up in the Puget Sound basin maybe 15 years ago, 20 years ago, but lightly. And then around 10 years ago –

Ramsey Russell: What do you mean they just showed up? One day you’re out there farming, and the next day you see these purple savory clams hanging on the stuff.

Adam James: Yeah. They’re under the ground, so I think they were talking to us first. You’re walking over them, hearing them, wondering what’s down there. Eventually, take the rake out and dig. They inhabit a zone of the intertidal that’s a little bit higher, but because they’re deeper, they can survive the heat and cold, like, the stresses of the elements a little better than, A, our native little neck clam, and B, the manila clam that was introduced along with the Pacific oysters back in the 40s. So, yeah, they’re here. But I think that as much as –

Ramsey Russell: So, they’re like an invasive species.

Adam James: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Like, a lot of invasive species show up from other countries, and whereas an indigenous species is kind of in balance with the predator base and this environment up shows something that’s got a thicker shell or a better feeding pattern or something and then just takes over the joint.

Adam James: Yeah, we call that invasive vigor.

Ramsey Russell: Invasive Vigor.

Adam James: And I don’t know if that’s a technical term, but you’re absolutely right. Everything around here has evolved together in a balanced system. And you throw something like this in here that can live higher and deeper. And guess what, the ducks can’t get them right. They’re just deep enough, and the crabs don’t want to come up that high because they are going to be left dry when the next night’s low tide. So, yeah, they’re there and they’re occupying a niche that really wasn’t formally occupied. The term invasive is powerful, and we generally use it for things that we don’t like, like maybe knotweed or Himalayan blackberries, although those blackberries are great. But yeah, they’re definitely not native. And I think, we joked about harvesting them all to try to get rid of them, but at this point, the market really demands them. There’s a restaurant group down in California, Kings restaurant group, great family, have dozen restaurants throughout the coast of California. And they used to be big purchasers of our Manila clams. They switch over to these purple savory clams every summer for about 2 months because the Manila’s just are weak. They’re not as hardy and they have more loss and shipping and transport. So it’s a good clam. Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: How hard was it when, I mean, for generations people have just been eating manila clams or some kind of clam and all of a sudden comes this little funny looking thing. How hard was it to get it off in the market and build an appetite for it, so to speak?

Adam James: Yeah, well, it was pretty tricky. I mean, people are accustomed to what they’re accustomed to, and changing their habits is not easy. And so long story short, you make the price cheap and of course you make the price cheap that doesn’t help you out because our perception of quality is so directly linked to price. They see it cheap, they think it’s a cheap clam, it’s no good. So then you make it even cheaper, and pretty soon you’ve made it so stupid cheap that they can’t say no.

Ramsey Russell: They got to take it. Yeah.

Adam James: And then they buy you out of it. And I think that’s like fisheries management 101. I mean, if you think about the chinook salmon back in the day, you talk to the packing plants in Astoria, Washington, back then it was like sunkissed tuna, right? And look at Chinook salmon now. So, yeah, it’s been a story that’s been played out throughout the seafood realm and perhaps beyond. But we’re happy to have them onboard for our customers because there is a time of year when they come in really handy. The yield can be better than the manila clams, and they hold up better once they’re harvested.

An Oyster Renaissance 

 Like, you get that dynamic where somebody’s done something, they’ve done a lot of things and you want to honor that. But at the same time, the market’s shifting or the market’s changing, it’s hard to pivot.

Ramsey Russell: I was telling you, we were up at the saloon ordering some food, ordering lunch, and you said, what do you like? I said, everything. I’m from deep south, I like shellfish, I love shellfish, it’s my favorite food group on earth. So just whatever you order, I’m going to dig into. And you were telling me a story, you’ve actually been down south and done some work with in the oyster industry down south. Talk about that experience.

Adam James: Oh, man, there’s some great things happening down there. There’s an organization called Oysters South. They threw a great party in Decatur, Georgia, every year called Landlocked. And if you’re ever in that zone and you have the time, it’s usually like the 3rd weekend in October. And what they’re trying to do is, the gulf, similar to this specific region, Hood canal, has a lot of natural oysters, wild oysters. And in areas like that, you can get by doing what grandpa did, right? You go out, you’ve got a lease and a permit, and you’re out there harvesting. And they’ve been doing that for a long time down there, and they kind of have it figured out. They know just how much they can take and not over harvest. So the issue with wild oysters is just consistency. And so there’s a great fella named Lane down at Murder Point Oyster Farm in Mobile, Alabama, growing oysters. And he invited us down, along with Alabama Sea Grant, to tour some oyster farms and sort of talk about some of the successes and challenges we’ve had here at Hama Hama. We’re big fish in a small pond, small fish in a big pond, however you want to look at it, taking oysters directly from the farm right there to market, and then also folks coming by, eating them on site like you are, and that really kind of links everything together. I think people can sit here, look out at the water. People lived along the shoreline for probably the majority of the time humans have been around. But anyway, so we’re down there talking to these guys, and I actually had one of the most distinct oyster experiences I can remember I was out on Dolphin Islander, and there’s a farm out there at the tip barrier island separating Mobile Bay from the gulf and wading out through extremely warm, in my opinion, water in my swim trunks to check on this cage of oysters and get out there. We shuck a couple. And that farmed Atlantic from Mobile Bay had this minty flavor to it that blew my mind. It was absolutely delicious. There’s a lot of great oysters coming out of Florida right now, and Alabama and I think there’s some farms starting up in Louisiana and Texas, pretty excited about what those guys have going on.

Ramsey Russell: You described something. You used the word renaissance. There’s an oyster Renaissance going on in the Deep South. What does that mean?

Adam James: Well, I was just kind of alluding to it. In places, even Japan, where these oysters came from, I just had a friend go visit, they respect traditions so much that it’s hard to make changes. We can all relate to that, especially in family businesses. Like, you get that dynamic where somebody’s done something, they’ve done a lot of things and you want to honor that. But at the same time, the market’s shifting or the market’s changing, it’s hard to pivot. There’s going to be a lot of speculation. I mean, they talk about the strengths and weaknesses of being a family business. And, like, one of the strengths is you can move quick and nimble. The other strengths is that, you move too quick and nimble, that could be any business. You jump on the next bandwagon and it leaves you in the dust. So I think in the gulf, they’ve been doing things so long the same way, similar to Hood canal here. I mean, hey, there’s still Oliver Gray at Eagle Creek that has never purchased an oyster seed. And I drive by, I live right there, I drive by, I see them out there, his dad, Oliver senior, doing the same things Oliver senior was doing. The market’s been what shifted, right? Like, if you looked at the amount of oyster bars in Seattle selling raw oysters now versus 20 years ago, not just Seattle, Denver, St. Louis, inland states that are looking for options, at best, if we’re fortunate, wild capture fisheries, maybe they flatline, maybe they’re going to increase a little bit. But what do we keep doing? Producing more people, right? So we’re talking about a product, whether it’s farmed on the east coast, Gulf coast, or Pacific coast, that where we can produce protein without feeding our animals. It’s truly remarkable. We’ve got some chickens, we’ve got some cows, occasionally we’ll have pigs, we’ve got some fish growing in some tanks, all of that stuff. I mean, with our cows, it’s not just, being up there once a day or twice a day to throw the hay out to them. It’s summertime, you’re looking at the weather, you’re trying to figure out when to cut your hay, you’re trying to bale that up, get it in the barn before it rains. Tides in right now, and our oysters are out there feeding, and we did absolutely nothing to accommodate that besides just keep that water clean. So I think, that story rings true for a lot of folks in this country and obviously around the world, these things are grazing algae and that’s where omegas come from, right? Is the sunlight and the chlorophyll. And you can get that in wild game, I mean, we all hunt and we know that a grass fed beef is going to be much more nutritious, although the grain fed beef sure tastes great, I’m not going to lie. I love a good ribeye every once in a while, but I had elk burger last night for dinner. You know what I mean? And yeah, so I think that sushi used to be big, right? And sushi maybe still is big, but oysters are providing something that may, a) it’s a domestic product, and b) it’s really truly, like, sustainable and arguably restorative. Especially when you’re talking about places like the Chesapeake Gulf, even here, although it’s not the native species we’re farming, it’s providing the same sort of ecosystem services that the native oyster would. And you look at some of these oysters that are growing out here, they got all kinds of critters living on top of them, living underneath them. We bring kids down to the beach, they’re kind of psyched about the oysters field trip or whatever. They want to turn the oyster cluster over and find the crabs, or the gun will fish or so the sculpin, if they’re lucky. And I think that, folks recognize that it, it takes clean water and a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck, but if you combine all those things together, you’re going to have a product that’s going to resonate with folks. Growing up around oysters, we’d go down, middle of the night, lantern light, pick a bucket, throw them on the fire. That’s how we ate them. When you started hearing about, I mean, shoot, just back in 2005, I guess that’s long now, there was a chef kef in Seattle was doing 25 cent oyster happy hours. What’s wow is, I would just went out to eat, we did a little team retreat and they were $60 a dozen.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Keeping Oyster Prices Accessible for Positive Experiences

So out here, I think, we try to keep the prices down where we just want people having positive experiences eating these things. And we’re kind of at odds with that dynamic that’s occurring, where you’re starting to see oysters as, like, high end white tablecloth stuff.

Adam James: Like, I know it. It’s kind of crazy because it’s maybe similar to lobster on the east coast. So out here, I think, we try to keep the prices down where we just want people having positive experiences eating these things. And we’re kind of at odds with that dynamic that’s occurring, where you’re starting to see oysters as, like, high end white tablecloth stuff. Some of the best parties I’ve been to have always had oysters at them. And you can split the room right down the middle, generally, folks are either going to love them or hate them, and a few people are kind of meh about them. But part of that is that, there’s a seasonality to them. And for a lot of folks, texture is a big part of the flavor experience and or the eating experience. And I think that’s why most folks don’t like eggplant, or at least most kids. And if you get an oyster that’s, like, out of season, it might be a little creamier. But you just got a dude from New Orleans taught me that. I was actually shucking oysters at a wild about game event in outside of Hood River, Oregon, and I’d been at a friend’s wedding the night before shucking oysters, and I was a little hungover, and I set my booth up, I showed up late, I was running to the restroom, and I shucked, like, 3 dozen, I came back, and the person next to me that was grilling some kind of steak that was absolutely delicious, like, oh, my goodness. He’s like, that guy just slurped down every single one of your oysters. And so there’s technique here. That’s what I’m saying. This guy, I met him, and he was from Louisiana, I can’t remember his name, but it was some Cajun name, and he was just like, Hama Hama as he walked by, and he would just pull those things up to his lip and he ate. He had some championship for the most oysters, slurped in 5 minutes or something.

Ramsey Russell: And how many do you think that was?

Adam James: I think he did, like, 120 oysters.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Adam James: Some remarkable.

Ramsey Russell: Out of my league.

Adam James: Yeah. Competition food, competition eating is not for everybody, and I’m sure he regretted it later that day. But He had that technique down, and I’ve used it a couple times when I’m out and about, and I mean, I love oysters, but there’s a time and a place for everything, but occasionally I’ve had to just do that. But generally speaking, I like to tip it up, taste the salt, brine, whatever, chew it a couple times, let it go down. But if there’s any red flags going on, I’ll slurp it.

Ramsey Russell: There’s a lot of different ways to eat raw oysters. I really like good oysters with maybe just a little lemon juice, just a little salt, but I just like oysters on the half yard. I mean, good oysters, to me, speak for themselves. I mean, you get a briny oyster, so it doesn’t need any salt, little lemon might accentuate it. I’ve had them dipped in vinegar. I’ve had, of course, the horseradish cocktail, then you can bake them many different ways, some people just put hot sauce on them, but I just like oysters. And then there’s a million different ways to roast them and cook them and bake them and smoke them and do everything else.

Adam James: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: It’s like bubba Gump oysters.

Adam James: It is like bubba gum.

Ramsey Russell: My dream come true.

Adam James: Yeah, it is. We’re doing different things. I mean, like I said, I grew up roasting them on the fire straight roasted oyster and Tabasco, and that was it. Stewed in their own salt, a couple shots of Tabasco, and you could eat them all day. I mean, these hood canal oysters, hama hama’s, anything comes out of this bay, call them like the Pilsner and the oyster world, they’re just something that’s approachable and enjoyable. Nowadays the markets are such that, restaurants want a variety, so farmers, we’re doing all kinds of crazy things. We’re growing them in bags that tip up and tip down. Well, it causes that Pacific oyster that is built to, like, lay flat on the beach to develop a nice deep cup and a harder shell, which improves shelf life. It allows them to ship a little better, hold the salt and the juice in, and they’re actually just a lot easier to shuck. We started something after the pandemic here. We called it the U-shuck bucket, right? So for like, $20, you can get a dozen oysters, knife, towel comes out in a bucket of ice. And the hama hamas that are grown on the beach, wild or farmed, tend to have a lot more variation in them. These oysters that are coming out of these bags, similar to a lot of what’s going on in the gulf, just develop a nice, deep cup, and it’s really easy to get that knife into the hinge and use it as –

Ramsey Russell: It’s got that V shaped cup to it.

Adam James: Exactly.

Ramsey Russell: We ate some of those the other night.

Adam James: Yeah, okay. Yeah. You ate some of those the other night. And one of the remarkable things is, for years we talked about doing this U-shuck thing, and we’re like, people can’t figure out how to shuck oysters, it’ll be too intimidating, they’ll cut their hand, they’ll do this, do that. And I think we sold, like, I don’t know, it was in the hundreds of dozens of U-shucks last year. We just talked about it, but it was some astronomical number. And what I like to see about that is folks gathered around a little huddle, doing something like, man, you can do this. They’re shucking, they got a kid in there. And it’s like, because ultimately, like, that’s what, we live in this day and age where, I mean, people are listening to this right now, maybe, and folks are staring at screens. But we can all agree that getting out and doing anything with your hands, you just feel like there’s something, later in the day, you’re like, damn it, I did something. And it was good. I ate a couple meat rocks, you know what I mean? And I had no idea. I think that’s part of what’s marveling about oysters is you look at these things, you’re like, is that a rock? And you shuck it open, and it’s just this delightful experience that, kind of connects you to the brine. And not to make the pitch, but during the pandemic, my sister got an online store started decades ago, and it just kind of sat there, have a little spike around Christmas and when folks were stuck at home and we shipped a lot of shellfish, and got a lot of great connections from that effort. People being like, hey, those clams or we had a little gathering, we got to shuck some oysters, we learned a new skill, and it’s pretty cool because there’s nothing more human than connection to food, right? I mean, that’s what’s connected people forever. Like, you show up with food, you’ll be welcome. And I think that, yeah, being able to share that with people and see other folks sharing that with their friends is something that brings me joy.

Ramsey Russell: Absolutely. What is Hama hama?

Adam James: What is Hama hama?

Ramsey Russell: Well, what does it mean? Where’d it come from?

Adam James: Okay, so coastal salish term.

Ramsey Russell: Hama hama.

Adam James: We grew up, and if we walked about 50ft over there, I mean, the other day I was driving across the bridge and it did stink. We had this run of pink salmon, like, unlike anything we’d ever seen. So growing up, we’d always heard it meant stinky due to the smell of the river in autumn and because of dead salmon. And we should go take a look. And I mean, like last week, last two weeks, driving through Brennan across the duck of Bush Hama hama, the smell of the pink salmon just envelope these valley bottoms. A friend who would know way more about this than me let me know that maybe that wasn’t the historical coastal salish meaning for it might have been closer to some type of plant that grew along the marsh. But at that point, he was like, you’ve put that in press so much, we’ll just keep people thinking it means stinky.

Ramsey Russell: A lot of these ducks that I’m out here hunting right now, the scoters, the old squall, there’s a lot of Harlequin you can’t hunt anymore, but they’re out here. The golden eyes, which a buddy of mine in Idaho calls shell crackers. They feed on your crop.

Adam James: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And so I may be getting a cart before the horse. I want to know kind of how these things are farmed. Are they a problem? Do they cut into your profit? Because they are eating what you’re trying to grow.

Adam James: Besides our employees, our customers, our third favorite people are duck hunters for sure.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yeah.

Adam James: I mean, it’s no joke. A large part of our effort to grow these clams is netting, predator exclusion netting that we put down, and we secure those nets to the ground with rebar stakes. The nets get barnacle sets on them, and then they get oyster sets on them, and it’s a constant process of pulling the nets off the beach and putting them back on the beach. If we don’t have the nets down, we don’t have clams to grow. Those ducks, the reason why they taste so good is I have heard they eat upwards of 20 clams, a tide of the juvenile seed clams, and they’re more methodical than our clam diggers sometimes. You’ll see those scoters fan out in these long lines and they’ll all dive down at the same time, and they’ll all come up and they’re working through the beach just very meticulously in a little v pattern.

Ramsey Russell: So, you see, I would have said they were eating small, like seed clams or small clams. And Captain Dave told me today that he’s killed scoters that had the same size manila clams that we ate the other night.

Adam James: Yeah, they’re a big duck and they can eat a big clam. They’re no dummy. Yeah. And they do –

Ramsey Russell: Is there any way to quantify that? If you didn’t have that waterfowl exclusion net, how much of your crop would be going through every duck season?

Adam James: If we didn’t have the predator net, we wouldn’t have any clams.

Ramsey Russell: None.

Adam James: None. We’d have pockets of clams here and there. But I don’t know what it is about Hama hama, you drive past the bush and the dozy, and you’ll see a little flock here, a little flock there, this flock out here I would say it’s in the hundreds, and it’s starting to spread some of the nearby estuaries. But years ago, I was joking with Captain Dave because he was saying that these things were more heavily regulated. And I’m like, well, maybe the people haven’t come to Hama hama. And we used to have the Audubon society out and they’d come out here specifically to look at these things, and that was cool. Hey, we all want ducks. I’ve come to peace with it. It’s just part of the working order. And they go up north and spend their summers up there, and they winter here. And as long as they keep migrating, I’m cool. Yeah, I’ve heard rumors of some sticking around in the south sound, and we’ve seen that happen with other things like our elk. You shoot too many lead cows and they forget where the mountains are and they never leave the farm. But hopefully, these guys keep giving us a break, and that gives us the time we need to rotate the nets on and off, and we just budget for that. It’s work, the clams are a big part of our business.

Ramsey Russell: I want to walk through how you all farm clams. It’s not like you’re just going out and going through the mud, picking up native clams like they did in the old days. Which leads me to, you said something earlier about how grandpa did it.

Adam James: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Which I’m thinking is way different than how you all do it now.

Adam James: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Kind of walk me through all the steps, process, and how things have evolved.

Adam James: Hook Canal is unique because although it’s a fjord and it’s deep, you get this lens of water that creates a thermocline that’s about 35ft deep. And so you’ll get real great conditions for larval incubation. So oysters and clams in the summer get spawny, they’ll release that gamete, becomes larvae, they’ll swim around for 20 days.

Ramsey Russell: And that’s like microscopic.

Predicting the Right Time for the Set

What Grandpa used to do is string up oyster shell that went through the cannery, hang it from racks, get that out over the tide, those racks would float, tide would come in, he’d float the racks out, and if he was lucky, you got to be good with a little bit of luck, you’d get the conditions that were right for a big spatfall, you get a big set.

Adam James: Yeah. What would I say? Like 20 to 80 microns? Yeah. So pretty small. And when they get ready, the oysters want to attach to another oyster shell or a clean rock or a stick or a piece of bamboo, if you’re in Japan. What Grandpa used to do is string up oyster shell that went through the cannery, hang it from racks, get that out over the tide, those racks would float, tide would come in, he’d float the racks out, and if he was lucky, you got to be good with a little bit of luck, you’d get the conditions that were right for a big spatfall, you get a big set. And I remember, like, as a kid, it was always, the question is, and we weren’t being too scientific about it. Nowadays, you might do a plankton toe and look at that with a microscope and try to find an oyster larvae that had a D hinge, which is a sign that it was getting ready to set. Back then, it was just kind of lick your finger, hold it in the wind, feel like it’s been warm for about 20 days without a big wind, and make the effort to put the racks out, because it was a big effort to get those racks out. And if you didn’t get a set, it was a lot of work for nothing. Nowadays there’s hatcheries up and down the west coast that are producing singles in more or less a lab setting. They’ll condition the oysters into spawning. That process starts right now into December, they’ll spawn them out. They’ll pulverize an oyster shell to about the same size as an oyster larvae. So is that oyster larvae swimming around the tank? It’s got aeration in it, so all the shell particles are floating. They’ll bind to one piece of shell per individual oyster and then they’ll settle out at about maybe 100 micron or smaller. And then they’ll nurse that up to about a millimeter. And that’s when we purchase the oyster. So we have nursery systems and we’ll rear them in the systems from 1 mm up to maybe 12 mm, half an inch. And then we put them out in the farm and some other type of intertidal nursery and get them up to a certain size where we can either plant them out on the beach or plant them in another bag.

Ramsey Russell: You talked about earlier, how do you get a – I don’t like those great big oysters the size of a cow tongue.

Adam James: Right.

Ramsey Russell: I like the size we ate, fits on a cracker, if you like to eat them on crackers. But you said something earlier about growing an old oyster that’s small.

Adam James: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: How does that work?

Adam James: Yeah, well, that’s just the right amount of stress. You’re trying to – that’s essentially what’s happening in the tumble system that we use to grow the blue pools, where, as the tide goes out, the oyster tips down in this bag, it’s kind of like a rock polisher, right? It’s busting off the shell. It’s causing the oyster to send resources to different areas that might be meat production or shell strength versus just shell growth. And in turn, is going to slow down the growth that you would measure and create, like a heartier, like, oyster with some weight, which is kind of what we’re looking for. It’s like a small oyster with a lot of weight that is going to ship well and hold up and provide the type of experience we want. Yeah. The right amount of stress. I mean, it’s like the art of the stall. You want to stall it out, but not too much to kill it. And I think that, I’ve read a little bit about how wineries work, I think there’s something similar going on with the way they’re producing grapes and soils that might not be the richest and that stress is right. I mean, the timber coming off the farm here, slow growing, tight grained, it’s going to make a better 2X4 than something coming off the Willamette valley. So a lot can be said for that there are certain other areas of agriculture where that might not apply, but with oysters and maybe, perhaps wine and not sure about beer or cider, but it plays out. An oyster that’s went through, most farms are planting them in the summer, and there are certainly some areas, like those inlets we just had, where you can get them up to market size before the second summer. But if you let them go through that second summer and go through the reproductive process, and then come out of that, they’re going to have a complexity of flavor and taste, which is very different than what we call the Springer group to that crop. And so for most of our farms, we’re trying, we’re aiming for like a 14 to 36 month grow out. Here at Hama hama, those Hama hamas we just ate were 3 years old. Those were planted in 2020. The blue pool we ate was planted like 16 months ago.

Ramsey Russell: What about the clams? Are they kind of the same life cycle trajectory? Pretty much similar.

Adam James: About 3 years on average to grow those clams we just ate.

Ramsey Russell: And they spawn and attach to rocks and do very similar life cycle?

Adam James: Yeah, for many years, we purchased clam seed and that’s certainly something that you need to do. Certain areas that don’t get natural sets. But, yeah, there’s specific areas around the farm where we get decent enough spatfall. And actually the clam nets help in that effort. Clam nets provide some substrate for those larval clams to attach to. They’ll bissel onto it, not get pushed down the beach and eventually dig in.

Ramsey Russell: When did you go down the Gulf coast? Because I just had this thought that back during a BP oil spill, basically they just, they just green lighted getting all those dang oysters and stuff out of there before the oil got to it. And I heard that it could be a long time before some of those fisheries got back productive. But now that may have been before this renaissance you talked about. And they began to farm it.

Adam James: That was before they began to farm it.

Ramsey Russell: And maybe why they started farming it like that.

Adam James: I’m sure it was part of it. You also have, like in the case of the Zurlott family down there at Murder Point, they’ve been shrimping down there for generations, and they’re just looking for a pivot and they’re reading about restorative aquaculture and oyster farming and looking at their water and they’re like, why the hell can’t we do this here? Yeah, the Gulf oil spill, that was kind of madness. I’d heard that it was some decisions that were made to release fresh water. The idea would push the tar back that killed off, like, billions of oysters.

Ramsey Russell: They’ve got to have a pretty high salinity.

Adam James: Yeah. And so that was hard on those guys and whether that was, I hate the Monday morning quarterback decisions like that, it was what they had to do at the time, but it definitely set things back. And, yeah, you’re going to – the other thing about those wild, those wild capture fisheries is, they’ve got that well managed and they need to do their population assessments. And for the most part, they’re letting that crop mature to the point where those oysters are a lot bigger than what the half shell market’s really looking for. And so a lot of folks are like, oh, I had some gulf oysters. Well, they haven’t had the farmed Gulf oysters. And those gulf oysters that you get down in Louisiana at Acme that are fire roasted with parm on top, I love those things.

Ramsey Russell: I do, too.

Adam James: Yeah. But they might not be as consistent for the raw market as the stuff the farms are starting to kick out now. So we’re pretty excited about what’s going on down there and hope to get some of those guys oysters up here to serve.

Ramsey Russell: I love Gulf coast oysters, but I’ve always felt like they were different than these oysters or the ones growing up in the high Atlantic with the colder waters. I felt like up here and out there in the upper Atlantic, they’re brinier, they’re better. And I don’t know if that’s a function, because here you all have a mineral bottom, not a mud bottom.

Adam James: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And it seems like maybe you’ve got higher salinity or colder water.

Adam James: A lot of those guys are not growing them on the bottom anymore.

Ramsey Russell: Now they’re farming.

Adam James: Yeah, the ones they’re farming them at the surface or up off the surface. So, I mean, that’s what I love about the oyster world is like, hey, it’s like beer, it’s like other things where you might like this or might like that, you might like a saltier oyster or a bigger oyster or less salty oyster. I mean, I just served some oysters to somebody the other day, and they’re like, look at salt. I felt like I just took a dive in the canal. But that person didn’t. So it’s like, if it wasn’t for variety, it wouldn’t be a horse race. So all of us growers, what’s neat about this industry right now is that, it’s not like a competition thing, because people are always going to want variety. We’re serving other the elves, we didn’t farm those. A friend of ours farms those, and we like to have variety so that folks can sit down and experience that and kind of wonder or marvel at the fact that, yeah, this can be the same species or different species, different species farmed in the same area might be more similar, say, than the same species farmed in two different bays on the east coast. Taylor shellfish grows a Tottenham virginica, that’s the virginica or Atlantic oyster. It’s amazing, right? It’s coming right down the bay here in Puget Sound. And so, yeah, I know what I like, but I kind of like you. I’m going to try oysters and kind of marvel at the provenance of that oyster and like, with the connection that it has to the water and, of course, like, the hard work that the men and women farming it have put in because it’s a romanticized job, but at the end of the day, you spend a lot of time counting oysters.

Ramsey Russell: I bet you do.

Adam James: And whacking barnacles. It’s got to go pack up my truck for elk hunting.

Ramsey Russell: Hey, your grandparents started this business, the oyster side of it.

It’s All in the Family

It’s where we eat, but it’s like this real beach party vibe. 

Adam James: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: How much of your family is still involved and who does what?

Adam James: Yeah, okay, so, family lore has it that Bardstad, after the depression, was ready to throw in the towel on the property, that was a big hit. We started logging right, right in the 20s, roaring 20s, and depression hit. And the cost extract the timber was greater than the revenue potential. So then he went off to the war and came back and got a letter from his dad saying Bart, that place is never going to make any money, and I think we should probably sell it. And Bart wrote him back that it was too good of a fishing stream to sell. Bart liked to fly fish for steelhead. And so he moved back here with my mom, my uncle, my aunt Mattie and Aunt Beth. And they grew up here, and at that time, the timberland hadn’t really come back yet. There were pockets of timber, he was still logging a little bit, but the Pacific oyster that was introduced from Japan about 40, 50 years earlier had had a leg hold out here. So he started looking at that. And one of the reasons why Hama Hama, I think, had so much brand recognition is you look at the gravel out here next to the beach, you can see all those little pebbles. So before there were hatcheries, we had sort of a natural system for producing single oysters, that gravel extends all the way out to past that float out there about half mile of tide land. And we get these singles. And I’ve heard stories of Bart driving into Shelton, putting them on the greyhound bus and a chef in Seattle picking those boxes oysters up, this is back in like the 60s and 70s, right? And at that time, what kind of oyster is it? Well, it’s a hama hama, right? And so that was really kind of what got things going. And Bart was an innovator. At the time, a big portion of our business was still the cannery, which was like, a lot of times you get these oysters that set on other oysters, they turn in those clusters and you’re going to shuck those. And that’s much more of a commodity market. The singles that are served on the platters tend to be more of a specialty market. And so he helped kind of reorient this business to that. And from there, I think, when I was in, I don’t know, maybe 4th grade, I started digging clams out here and I grew up in it, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Was it by choice or just natural or something you wanted to do? Did you ever think about leaving this industry and getting into something else?

Adam James: Oh, yeah. I left for a while, but got out of high school and headed to Colorado and ended up in Wyoming working on a dude ranch for an outfitter. we take people on pack trips, Winter River Mountains, we had elk camp did that on and off for 4 or 5 years. And I was working with a horse logger there and my uncle was getting ready to log some timber up here and he sent me a letter back when he sent letters.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Adam James: And he was like, hey, I’m going to log this. And I just as soon have you come down to hand fell it, then hire in a processor or a buncher because was only like a 10 acre spot and it was a special moment, as my dad was on the skitter, Uncle Dave was on the loader, Uncle Wayne was driving the log truck. And I think that was the moment like in my life at least, where I was like, wow, this place is pretty cool. And its home. And it took some traveling, I’d been to Europe, I’d been to Morocco, I traveled around a little bit here and there and to kind of see home in that light. And although like, 4th, 5th, 6th grade when we were young, we’d go out here. I mean, I remember our 1st $100 bill I ever got handed, Joe Ray at the time was managing the clams and I think I’d work the whole month of July. We get paid $10 a bucket for a bucket of clams. And sometimes we’d only dig half a bucket, but what were we, like 11 or 12? But he handed me a $100 bill and that was a lot of money to a 10 year old or whatever back in 1987 or 1986 or whenever that was. So I think that, that relationship to shellfish was pivotal, was meaningful to me. And I can still walk past like the boot room and especially in the summer when I smell the smell of like baked mud on hip boots and it just transports me right back to that world. So I was logging for a while and then I started helping my cousin hank out down here and who’s managing this business, and eventually he stepped aside and I kind of stepped in, and I was pretty young, and I do got to apologize to some of my coworkers and employees. I think I was, like, 26 years old. It was a much smaller ship back then to run, but it was still a pretty big ship. But, yeah, we’ve got a great team working here right now.

Ramsey Russell: Any brothers and sisters? Is it still a family enterprise?

Adam James: Yeah, my sister has worked here her whole life as well, and she’s really – and my brother Tom is now managing the tree farm, he’s the reason why we have fire going right over here right now. And he rented a firewood processor every year to cut up the wood, and it’s always a fun thing to discuss, but, yeah, they’re logging the mountain up there, and we really feel like, to the extent that you can, you got to keep ground productive and we all live in houses, but development is something that we don’t really even have conversations about that. We want to keep the forestry intact and that culture. And Lissa’s the reason why we’re sitting in this A frame right now. She did some traveling, too, and really picked up on –

Ramsey Russell: Let me describe to anybody listening, about what we’re talking about is it’s like a beach party vibe. We parked way out here, he’s pulling a 25 foot boat, we had to park way out the end of the gravel lot. And I’m looking back, there’s all these little fire heaters going and little coverings, and there’s all these little A frame, little A frame. I’m like, what is that? He said, oh, you’ll see. It’s where we eat, but it’s like this real beach party vibe. And the parking lot was slapped full with people coming to eat lunch, and they reserved this little picnic table under this covering because it rains here in Washington, overlooking the water, you got a little heater right here, and Kudos to whoever thought of it, it’s a brilliant idea. It was a great place to eat lunch. I just want to describe to the listener what an A frame was.

A Business Born from Roadside Requests

And at that time, we were young, didn’t have a lot of experience and we basically built the building to accommodate the businesses that we had at the time, the retail store, which is all kind of a funny story, because the reason we have a retail store is because in the 60s, when Bart Grandpa was running the oyster house, people would see the big pile of shells, stop by the side of the road, knock on the door, hey, I want to get some oysters.

Adam James: Yeah, Lissa, she traveled down to the Hog Island oyster company down in Tomales Bay, California. They had a valet parking service at their oyster farm 15 or 20 years ago. Now they’re an hour west of Napa hour north of the Bay area. But there were people wanting to get out of that city and just go do something and more importantly, connect with something. And I think that’s the connection that oysters really – And so when we built that building in 2008, Lissa and I were young, she lobbied hard with the family to have a restaurant built. And at that time, we were young, didn’t have a lot of experience and we basically built the building to accommodate the businesses that we had at the time, the retail store, which is all kind of a funny story, because the reason we have a retail store is because in the 60s, when Bart Grandpa was running the oyster house, people would see the big pile of shells, stop by the side of the road, knock on the door, hey, I want to get some oysters. You know what I mean? And probably even say it like you. And Lorraine or whoever was packing oysters would have to take gloves off, grab the cash box, go deal with this customer. It wasn’t the kind of customer service you expect or get today. It was always a hassle. Eventually, that business got so significant that they took an old shack, turned it into a retail store. And this restaurant that we have here is kind of the same thing. I mean, we wanted the restaurant, didn’t get it, and eventually just put a barbecue out front, a grill, started roasting oysters, people started showing up. And if it sometimes feels like it’s a circus, it’s because we got a big tent over there. All the employees and staff that make this happen, and it’s a lot of them. And it’s been remarkable because the growth has been astronomical. I think 2014 was maybe when we kind of started the on site dining. So I guess 10 years now, but it’s really been customer driven. As soon as we built that building, people would stop by and be like, is this a restaurant? No. Well, where can we get your oysters around here? And we’re shipping them all across the country. And Alderbrook’s got oysters. But really, you could go to the Gui duck and get a great fried clam platter, but they’re probably quahogs from Apalachicol someplace on the east coast, you know? So there weren’t a lot of options for local seafood served locally, even though this bay is producing all this stuff. So, it’s a good model that works because we can take it from farm to table. And a lot of what we joke about nowadays is a lot of the greatest things grandpa did was what he didn’t do by either selling off the property or developing it or building some structures here that wouldn’t allow us. I mean, the parking lot is one of our biggest assets, this structure, highway along Hood Canal. There’s not a lot of places to pull off. Hood sports a great little town, but you can’t find a place to park there on a Saturday. And kids show up here, they can roll out on the beach and it’s like a state park where you can eat a platter of roasted oysters, have a cold beer, glass of wine, whatever you’d like.

Ramsey Russell: I think it’s really interesting – how you were working when Dave and I got here, and he said, let me show you over here. And we went out and look at the farm, which I can’t really see anything but the buoys, but I can imagine what you’ve described. And then he pointed to this building over here behind you, which is a very modest, a small building. He said, that’s what this was forever. I guess that’s your grandpa’s. And then all of this came later, like you just described. And it’s really kind of turned into something. We were getting out. Somebody said, how big are they? I said, I hadn’t eaten them yet, you know. He said, where are you from, hearing my accent, I said, I’m from Mississippi. Yourself? Seattle. I don’t know how far we are from Seattle, but it’s not next door.

Adam James: Well, we’re only 30 miles as a crow flies.

Ramsey Russell: And plus or minus an hour ferry ride.

Adam James: Yeah. So it’s a couple hours to get there. But we did have a chef flying for an event one time, and he looked at his phone because his sous chef missed the flight. He’d booked the rental car. He said, oh, it’s only 28 miles away. I’ll just hire an uber.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, right.

Adam James: It was an expensive uber ride. 2.5 hours later, he’s out here.

Ramsey Russell: How can everybody connect with you? First off, do you sell oysters to Mississippi? I mean, can I order some for Christmas or whatever?

Adam James: Absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: Do you ship nationwide?

Adam James: hamahamoysters.com.

Ramsey Russell: And you do have an Instagram account, I’m sure.

Adam James: Yep, we have an Instagram account. Lissa manages that. And we started doing this thing, a couple years ago. Well, we started the online store about 15 or 20 years ago, but I might have mentioned during the pandemic, it really got the wind behind its sales. Started something called an oyster gram, where it’s actually hard to give the gift of raw oysters to a friend of yours that likes them. We’ll ship you a little box. It’s essentially like an IOU. So if you’ve got a buddy that wants oysters, they get this box, and then they can just go to the online store, enter the code, and get the oyster shipped to them whenever they want.

Ramsey Russell: That’s a cool idea.

Adam James: It’s a pretty cool idea. But, yeah, we’re on the Instagram. It’s this one company now, and that’s what we like to keep it, we haven’t really split off the restaurant from the wholesale operations, but Justin staying and his team keep that online store and direct a chef market. It’s a heavy lift. It’s a lot of work dealing with the end. You would think if the oysters didn’t show up. You’d think people’s lives were ending sometimes. But I get it, it’s usually a special occasion when they’re ordering them, and there’s only so much we can do, and then it’s in the hands of FedEx or UPS. And those guys have been doing a great job for us. As long as it doesn’t get stuck inside of Memphis with the tornado blues again. Because everything we ship goes through Memphis these days, and we watch the weather there like a hawk.

Ramsey Russell: Good luck.

Adam James: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Last question. How many oysters might you have eaten in your life, and do you like to eat them still? And I asked this question because I had a friend one time that worked at Baskin Robbins, and they told her, eat all you want. Yeah, well, by the time I met her, she didn’t eat ice cream no more. She was sick of it. And I’m just wondering, after a lifetime of digging and eating oysters and clams, maybe you had already eaten lunch when we got here, but you still like them?

Adam James: I do. I’ve eaten a half dozen today.

Ramsey Russell: Okay. Do you eat a half dozen every day?

Adam James: Not every day, but maybe a dozen or so a week. Like you’re saying about how to cook them. We still shuck oysters here, and I love oyster stew. I love fried oysters. My kids do too. It’s like, you pan fry those things. And a really great raw oyster. I mean, a raw oyster anytime, I’ll be up in the mountains, I’ve got a joke about pocket oysters. Because I really feel like, especially when oysters are in season, if they’re too cold, it’ll mask the flavor a little bit, so lukewarm. Some of the best oysters that I’ve ever eaten, obviously, are just coming right off the bat.

Ramsey Russell: Sitting in a boat, pulling them out.

Adam James: Yeah. And part of that is that they’re like 55° then. And I think that that can be the perfect temperature for an oyster. So, like, I mentioned that aisle dolphin that I had down in Mobile Bay. I could count off to you, top 5, 10 oyster eating experiences. Some of those are place related, some of those are oyster related. Usually it’s the combination of the 2. Being up on a mountain with a pocket full of blue pools in a snowstorm, bringing them out to your buddies. I think you’ve had experiences like this where it’s like, where last thing expect to see come out of your pocket, and they can just be, I guess it’s sustenance. It’s like the true definition of, you’re thirsty, you’re hungry, and you eat this delicious oyster. It’s just life force. You’re getting that from the oyster. That’s really what motivates me, man. I can’t say that we’re always growing the perfect oyster. It’s a seasonal thing. There’s a lot of variability and things that are out of our control. But when the stars align and that product is where you want it to be, it’s an all time thing. And fortunately, that happens enough for us to have people keep coming back. But, yeah, it’s always because you get beat down with business and this and that. But when we’re really a product first company, we spend a lot of time talking about oysters, eating oysters and figuring out how to scale the company up without compromising quality. Because our family’s growing, our employees are growing, and we need to figure out how to do that. But it’s got its challenges.

Ramsey Russell: Folks, thank you all for listening to this episode of Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere from Hama Hama Oysters out on the Olympic peninsula. I got to let Mr. Adam James, our guest today, go, he’s got a pack. Because opening day of Tule elk season is tomorrow. Thank you very much, Adam.

Adam James: Thank you.

Ramsey Russell: Folks, see you next time.