The annual oyster festival was held today in Bluff. Bluff is the South Island town at the southern end of New Zealand, near Invercargill. This is where oyster boats leave from. The boats pull a dredge along the bottom of the sea to collect oysters. The oysters fall into a net. The season is from March to August.
Because of bad weather last year for the festival, this year it was held in a large shed. The shelter was needed today because there were rain showers and the temperature was only 10 degrees.
Food at the festival each year is very special. It is mostly sea food. This includes oysters and other shellfish like paua, scallops, mussels, and the roe (eggs) from kina. Different kinds of fish include salmon, whitebait, and blue cod. Salmon is found in some South Island rivers but is also from salmon farms. Blue cod is a deep sea fish, usually found in South Island waters. Whitebait are very small fish, about 5cm long, found in the mouth of a river.
Smoked eel and muttonbirds are also very special. Eels come from rivers. Muttonbird chicks are caught on islands in the south of New Zealand. They are seabirds called shearwaters. The Maori name is Titi. The chicks have a lot of fat and taste a bit like mutton.
The festival includes entertainment and a competition to see who is the fastest person to open 50 oysters. This year, the winner – a woman – did this in 3 minutes. About 3,000 people attended the festival today.
Listen to May 26th 2013 to hear more about the annual Oyster Festival in Bluff.
Vocabulary
• annual – held every year
• dredge – steel equipment attached to a boat
• kina – sea urchin; it has a prickly outside