By Donna Cornelius
When Jeremy Downey eats an oyster, the taste takes him back to his childhood.
Downey, the owner and chef of Bistro V in Vestavia Hills, grew up in Bayou La Batre on the Alabama Gulf Coast.
“Our next door neighbor was an oyster guy, and he’d bring us a big old sack and say, ‘Here’s 50 pounds of oysters,’” Downey said. “Sometimes he’d just drop them on our doorstep. My dad would open them with his knife. I’d eat them right out of the shell.”
Downey’s still an oyster lover.
“You taste that saltwater in your mouth, and it brings you home,” he said. “I love that briny taste, that taste of the sea.”
Downey served oysters to a crowd of fellow fans at The Hangout Oyster Cook-off and Craft Beer Weekend in Gulf Shores Nov. 6-7. This was the eighth year for the event, which featured an oyster cooking competition with more than 40 restaurants, demonstrations by Food Network stars and other chefs, craft beer tastings and music.
Downey was competing at the festival for the third time, he said.
“I wanted to be a part of it since it’s in my neck of the woods,” he said. “My mom, dad and grandma still live in that area.”
His first experience at the cook-off left him a bit shell-shocked, he said.
“It was a learning experience,” he said. “I didn’t realize the labor involved. I manned the grill for eight hours. After that, I started to figure it out – what works, what doesn’t. I do most of the prep work at the restaurant; my dad does some at his house.
“I pack everything up and go to meet my family. My dad brings his grill. You have to be ready, to prepare. We do about 13 cases of oysters, each about 50 pounds.”
Cook-off entrants have to offer three different oyster concoctions for ticket holders to sample. Downey said the categories are the same every year: raw, Oysters Rockefeller and Cajun.
His raw entry was West Indies style with Zing Zang granita. His take on Oysters Rockefeller included pork belly, herbed Cajun butter and spicy potato chip breadcrumbs. His Cajun creation was made with Conecuh tomato puree, Crazy Cajun Butter – which has bacon, lemon juice, spinach, garlic and oregano – and pecorino cheese.
When the awards were handed out on Saturday night, Bistro V won fourth place in the raw category and eighth place for its Cajun oysters.
Downey said he takes care not to “overpower the oysters” with other ingredients.
“I like the raw category best,” he said. “I’m into a little hot sauce and eating them straight out of the shell. I don’t even want lemons.”
Oysters aren’t the only seafood that Downey loves to cook.
“I’m a huge seafood person,” he said. “You’ll always find it on our menu at Bistro V. My strengths are seafood and vegetables.”
When buying oysters and other seafood, you have to be selective, he said.
“You can’t go to the average grocery store,” Downey said. “You have to know the people and the sources, or it can be tricky. Using a good product is huge. It’s like having a Mercedes or BMW – it’s going to handle better.”
Downey wasn’t the only person with Birmingham connections at the weekend event.
Martie Duncan, a Food Network Star finalist and Banks High School graduate, emceed cooking demonstrations. She also teamed with Jim Smith, chairman of the Alabama Seafood Marketing Commission and head chef at the Alabama Governor’s Mansion, for a demo on how to make a biscuit-topped oyster stew.
Brews from Avondale Brewing Co., Cahaba Brewing Co. and Good People Brewing Co. were among craft beer samples on Friday night. Birmingham’s Carla Jean Whitley, author of “Birmingham Beer: A Heady History of Brewing in the Magic City,” was the moderator for the Alabama Brewing Panel, which featured words of wisdom from several craft beer gurus.
The Birmingham-based Black Jacket Symphony entertained the crowd on both days of the festival.
Among festival headliners were Food Network chefs Anne Burrell, who hosts “Worst Cooks in America,” and Marc Murphy, a regular judge on “Chopped.” Both said they were making their first-ever visits to Alabama.
In addition to the cook-off, the festival had oyster-shucking and Bloody Mary-making contests.
The Hangout made sure to have big-screen TVs around so football fans could keep up with the games on Saturday. Downey, who was a member of the University of Alabama’s 1992 national championship team, had his own plans for watching Bama and LSU duke it out.
“I went back to our condo and watched the game with my 90-year-old grandmother,” he said.
Think you might like to attend next year’s mollusk mash-up? For more information about The Hangout Oyster Cook-off and Craft Brew Weekend, visit www.hangoutcookoff.com or follow the festival on Facebook or on Instagram and Twitter @hangoutcookoff.com.
