Panorama 10th annual Oyster Opening Competition in Prague

Photo: CT24 A quick countdown got the ball rolling and oyster juice sprayed spectators in the front row. The aim is to open thirty oysters as fast as possible and present them as they would in a restaurant –either on the deep or flat shell. The mussel must be completely severed, but intact – not torn, cut or wounded and there must be no blood. Those-in-the-know will tell you that the secret to opening oysters is brute force, so I was rather surprised to see a young woman among the 19 contestants. She had the most fans there and the head of the Prague Culinary Institute which organizes the event –Roman Vaněk - was one of them.

“Opening oysters is a little bit tricky. The main thing is you have thirty oysters and after about fifteen, twenty you really need strength to carry on. But watch that girl - Eliška – from Ambiente restaurant. She competes every year and she is so very good. This year I hope she will be one of the hot candidates.”

This is a land-locked country – it’s funny that we are having an oyster opening competition here. Do you think that people’s eating habits are changing and that Czechs are eating more sea-food nowadays?

“I hope so, I really hope so. You know this event is also a way of marking the arrival of spring and freshness – and those oysters are pretty fresh – very, very, very fresh.”

I took Mr. Vaněk’s advice and kept an eye on Eliška who did not disappoint the crowd and much to everyone’s delight won hands down in direct competition with three others –she opened 30 oysters in four minutes five seconds flat which eventually got her an admirable second place. Much to my amusement the perky, brown-eyed brunette who opens 200 oysters a day in Prague’s popular Ambiante Brasileiro restaurant slipped away for a grilled sausage once her work was done –and secretly admitted she was not exactly partial to oysters.

Václav Frič “I first tasted an oyster three years ago at this competition. By then I had spent a few years opening them every day and had got really good at it, but I was never really tempted to taste one. Even now I can think of better things to eat. But oysters are my work and I can challenge the best when it comes to opening them. The guys use brute force. I use willpower. If you don’t really, really want to open that oyster -you never will.”

One man who is so good on national scale that he had to back out of this year’s contest in order to give others a chance is Václav Frič – who now teaches at the Prague Culinary Institute. Six-times Czech winner, he came seventh in the world in Galway – an admirable achievement for a man who only opens oysters a few times a year. As the others competed he gave the audience a side-show –opening sixty oysters in the time contestants opened just half that number.

“I am six-times Czech champion and last year I ranked seventh on the world scale. So I decided not to compete this year in order to give one of the boys a chance to win and go to Galway. I hope they use the opportunity well and I look forward to the day when one of them will be good enough to beat me in a direct contest.”

One of the well-known and respected judges on the panel Irishman Frank Haughton recalls how he brought the competition to the Czech Republic – as he did the Irish Music Festival and the best Irish whisky.

“I started this competition ten years ago –back then it was part of the Irish Music Festival because each year we were trying to add a new dimension and also some aspect that would bring together Czech and Irish. And this was a good opportunity to have Czechs taking part in the competition from which the winner would go to the world championships in Ireland – it was a kind of a bridge between Ireland and the Czech Republic.”

Photo: CT24 What made you think of oysters in a landlocked country like ours?

“Well, that was slightly comical, to start such a competition in a place where sea-food wasn’t really common and people were suspicious of it because it is a landlocked country, which is really totally irrelevant because fish is being transported all over the world now really quickly. There was an interest here in things that weren’t experienced in the past –so people were interested to see this and find out what it was all about and it also seemed a good idea to give away all the oysters and let people have a treat that they hadn’t had before.”

How did Czechs do at the start – was it really difficult to get them going?

“No, it wasn’t actually. I think people were keen to market their restaurants and that gave them an opportunity to do so. It was quite a bit of fun at the beginning and we had a lot of Irish music and I think we laughed a little bit more. Now it is still fun, but it is a little bit more serious. The guys really are competing now. They were learning ten years ago.”

So how good are they now?

“Now the guy who won last year came seventh in the world championship out of twenty people. And I think for a land-locked country this is quite an achievement. And if we can go –in ten years – from coming in 18th or 19th to seventh place –we have set ourselves a target that maybe we’ll have a Czech winning the world competition within the next five years, which I think would be quite interesting to see. So I think these guys deserve huge support and huge encouragement. I was even thinking could we get them in the Guinness Book of Records as the first landlocked country to win an oyster opening competition...(laughs). So there’s a lot of fun in it still and I think the Czech Republic is a country which is trying very hard to be recognized for cuisine and I think this kind of event helps in promoting that.”

Frank Haughton, photo: Think magazine You are on the jury – is there a special trick in opening oysters that makes one really good at it?

“If you really want to know the truth –I’ve never opened an oyster.”

Do you like them?

“I quite like them – particularly when you know that they are really fresh and really nice. You know I don’t quite get it what it is about an oyster –but you just feel good when you have one or two. You are supposed to let them slide down, not even chew them, but I think it is what they are supposed to do for the libido and your general feeling of wellbeing that people go for more than anything else – and of course a pint of Guinness beside them.”

People watching the contest could judge for themselves what is so special about having an oyster. The contestants opened all one thousand oysters delivered – helping volunteers from the crowd give it a try as well – and all the oysters – minus the bloodied ones – were passed around on trays for people to sample.

And of course, the height of the event was the announcement of the Czech oyster competition winner – Tomáš Hladík –a young cook from a Prague restaurant called At the Gourmet.

“I’m delighted. It’s a great feeling Galway is a great place. I have been there twice and last time I came 14th so I hope that my third time there will push me further up the ladder.”