Oyster Culture

“The best part of raising oysters is just to be out there on the grounds at dawn on a winter morning. It’s just beautiful.”

UNC professor Bernie Herman has raised oysters on the Easter Shore of Virginia on a small scale for the last eight years. Living there as a small boy, oysters were common, abundant. Now, he says they’re just the opposite, threatened by climate-related erosion, so he does all that he can to protect them. But Herman isn’t a marine biologist. He’s a cultural historian.

Herman’s Eastern Shore of Virginia Foodways Project documents and celebrates the area’s rich culinary heritage and aims to enhance awareness of the distinctive terroir through community involvement.

Read the complete Carolina Story

Bernie Herman is the George B. Tindall Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies and chair of the UNC Department of American Studies.

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