Florida Archives - Hungry Travelers

I met Kendall Schoelles around dawn at 14.2 miles west of the John Gorrie Memorial Bridge on Route 30A. (That's how they measure distances in Apalachicola, Florida.) We drove his pickup down a packed dirt path to a marshland dock, where we boarded Schoelles' shallow-draft oyster boat. We were headed for the oystering grant that's been in his family since the late 19th century. The Schoelles family grant used to be 1,100 acres; after government takings, it's down to 158. That's enough to keep Kendall and his brother harvesting enough oysters to make a living. Most Apalachicola oystermen, like those pictured above, have to make do with the public bars. Apalachicola Bay oysters are the pride of the Gulf of Mexico – plump, sweet, and...Read More

Honestly, the oysters were what first drew us to Apalachicola, the sleepy little town on the Florida panhandle where a barrier island at the mouth of the Apalachicola River creates perfect conditions for the tastiest bivalves on the Gulf Coast. (But more about that in our next post.) Pat wrote about some of the town's charming characters (and a delicious chocolate kumquat cake) for the Boston Globe. Here's the online version. One of those characters was John Lee (pictured above), whose shop Retsyo, Inc. (that’s ''oyster'' backwards) sells all manner of Apalachicola souvenirs – including the honey that bees make from the nectar of the white tupelo gum tree in the miasmal swamps of the Apalachicola River. According to Lee, this so-called ''champagne of honeys''...Read More

Florida

Tonging for wild oysters in Apalachicola Bay

Tupelo honey hits Apalachicola’s sweet spot