At long last, a simple recipe for oysters and rice

We just cracked open a new oyster season here in the Lowcountry. And rice never goes out of season. So why is it so hard to find an oyster rice recipe?

Oyster rice was the highlight of Catherine Fripp Gaston's recent 100th birthday party in Chelsea. But her relative who brought the dish from Savannah -- along with some perfect red rice -- clammed up when everyone wanted the recipe.

Nell Smith of Prince Street in Beaufort read about the birthday party and called asking for the recipe "because two of my favorite things in the world are rice and oysters, of course."

Smith grew up in Winnsboro, but has been steaming in the Lowcountry since her late husband, John Gettys Smith, came to handle marketing for Sea Pines in the 1960s. She opened Nell's Harbour Shop in Harbour Town, and they reared a family on the island before moving to Beaufort in recent years.

Highfalutin' oyster recipes are easy to find: Oysters Rockefeller, Oysters Casino, Angels on Horseback, oyster fritters, oyster bisque, oyster stuffing, oyster stew, oyster soufflé, oyster pie and oyster casseroles. The matriarchal "Charleston Receipts"cookbook has something called "Baalam's Oysters" and oysters with quail.

One of our local kitchen "bibles" is the "Sea Island Seasons" cookbook published by the Beaufort County Open Land Trust. It has an "Oysters on Toast" recipe from Becky Trask. If its cup of half-and-half, an egg yolk, bacon drippings and oyster liquor wouldn't be as good over rice as buttered, crisp toast, I'll shuck a bushel of oysters with my bare hands. Trask says not, and since it was her "Mama's recipe," I won't argue.

Lowcountry cuisine has gotten so stylish, you'd think Charleston was Paris. Bluffton, once known for Mullet Day, will host the fifth annual Historic Bluffton Arts & Seafood Festival Oct. 18-25.

Leave it to our dear Gullah friends on Daufuskie Island to answer Nell Smith's simple question.

The late Billie Burn's cookbook, "Stirrin' the Pots on Daufuskie," includes a recipe for "Oyster Stew or Gravy" from the late Agnes Washington. She and her husband, Gabriel, lived off the land and the creek on an island with no bridge. Ingredients could change by season, and measurements ebbed and flowed like the tide.

On Daufuskie, they pull together one pint of oysters, one small chopped onion, three slices of bacon and one tablespoon of self-rising flour. Fry the bacon, remove it from the pan, and sauté the onion. Add flour and let it brown. Add oysters and crumbled bacon. Add a little water if needed. Cook until oysters curl around the edges. Serve over rice or grits.

There it is. Oyster rice. Filling, simple and good. Eat your heart out, Mr. Rockefeller.