History of oysters consumption in France

230 million years	Age of the oldest discovered fossils.
Greek period	It is well known that the Greeks were great oyster consumers. They collected them on natural benches and we also know that the oyster shells were used as ballot paper. For example, if they wanted to banish someone from their city, they made a vote with the top of the oyster shells. The origin of the word "ostracism" would perhaps come here (ostrakon : shell).
Roman Period	The Romans were also great oyster amateurs and they couldn't conceive a banquet without it. This is why they imported it at high cost from Gaule. It was a certain Sergius Orata (140-91 BC) who first had the idea of organizing their breeding. The osters were either consumed fresh, with no ingredients, or accompanied by garum (a sauce which is like the nuoc man). It should be specified that the oyster known be the Romans were the flat ones.
Middle-age	Enormous piles of oyster shells were discovered, and it shows that the oysters were largely consumed during the high middle-age (900 to 1300 AD). But it is rather certain that the production of oyster was limited to the collecting on natural benches.
16th century	Development of the oyster trade towards mainly the capital : Paris. It is when lunches with only oyster meals appeared. This animal was eaten very abundantly : nearly 150 per guest.
17th century	Oyster is a product that is still appreciated among the nobility and it still remains an attribute of a good table. However, we can also find it in the countryside that at the royal court. Only the slowness of the transport limits its expansion during the heat of the summer. Jean-François of Troy (1679-1752) made a painting, in 1735, of these very snuffed lunches which were really a society phenomenon.

18th century	The oysters have more and more success, and this craze will lead to the exhaustion of the natural benches and oyster farming becomes more and more necessary in the following century. This story is related in the birth of the oyster farming.
Napoleon III	With the creation of the first parcs in 1866, it is under this emperor that the organized farming of the oyster really begins in France. In order to reconstitute the natural benches, the government of Napoleon III will support the import of foreign oysters. At the time, the cultures are mainly farming flat oysters and angulata (the angulata comes from the mouth of the river Tage). This new variety, named " the portugese " (Crassostrea angulata, which is its real name), is introduced in Arcachon but later arrives accidentally in the Marenne-Oleron basin where the Morlaisien throws its " rotten " stock of oysters in the sea, thinking that they are lost. This happens in may 1868. The flat oyster is sold for 3 golden louis the 1000, and the angulata is worth less than 1 golden louis.
20th century	At the begining of the century, the flat oyster, which is the native French oyster, is contaminated by an increasingly severe " épizootie " which kills it in its third year. The situation becomes really critical in the years 1920-21 when the extent of the " épizootie " doesn't allow its massive production. This is when we rediscover the angulata whose breeding allows the survival of the oyster exploitations. This oyster multiplies so well that it is very rapidely weakened by the lack of nutrient and this specie is also contamined by a terrible " épizootie " which destroys it almost completely. After this disaster, the oyster farmers have repopulated the coasts with a resistant specie: the japanese Crassostrea gigas. Since then, this oyster has slowly adapted itself to our lalitudes and it remains the oyster that we find in european plates.

Oysters in History