Canada: Oyster-shucking record at Tyne Valley festival
A Canadian team has managed to open 8,840 oysters in one hour flat, beating the record set by a French team back in 2002.
The 10-member team at the Tyne Valley Oyster Festival on Canada's Prince Edward Island had to meet strict criteria – "shucking" the oysters with a knife, and without damaging the meat or surrounding tissue. The jubilant shuckers "hugged and sprinkled beer over each other" as Guinness Book of World Records adjudicator Philip Robertson announced they'd overtaken France's achievement of 8,472 oysters, the Journal Pioneer reports.
Judge Robertson "kept the crowd in suspense" as he read out the individual shucking scores of the Team Canada members – before finally announcing it was Patrick McMurray who had pushed them over the finishing line with a personal total of 1,114 oysters opened in an hour. McMurray is a record-holder in his own right – for opening 38 oysters in one minute – a record he set four years ago. Two other team members managed to open more than 1,000 oysters in the allotted hour.
Festival chairman Jeff Noye, a Team Canada member himself, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that the shucked oysters will not go to waste, as they will feature prominently in the Friday night festive fried oyster supper.
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