At next month’s Oyster Garden event at Comida in Hahndorf, festival founder Jordan Jeavons said he was “pushing the hype” for oysters and their underrated environmental benefits.

Jordan Jeavons said last year he had “bonded enough with COVID-19”.

The former caterer and music festival organizer – tasked with helping launch the three-day Utopian State of Papershell Farm Party, among others – said the opportunity to travel interstate for work had failed in due to the current pandemic.

Feeling apathetic, he instead traveled within the state. During a two-week camping trip on the Eyre Peninsula, Jordan experienced an emotional transformation. He came home feeling “really good” and associates the surge in mood with a food he regularly sipped on the trip.

“It certainly had something to do with eating two dozen oysters a day while camping,” says Jordan.

“You can buy them at the gas station over there. It’s the best. It’s a dozen oysters. I was like ‘Let’s drive further so that we run out of gasoline so we can get more oysters.’ “

Driven by this discovery, Jordan throws a party to celebrate the best of South Australian oysters, hosted at Comida in Hahndorf and in collaboration with Endless Grooves and the wine distribution gurus A Good Bunch.

The event will feature a range of Pacific and Angasi oysters, sourced from a range of regional suppliers, such as Turner’s Oyster and Seafood by Cowell, Kiwi’s Oysters, Zippels Oysters and Kangaroo Island Fresh Seafoods, among others.

The drink list will include wine labels such as Ngeringa, Gentle Folk and Ministry of Clouds, with music provided by local DJs Mehdi, Nantale and Cazeaux OSLO (who are also half of hip-hop group SO Crates. ).

“I feel like every time everyone eats a bunch of oysters, and you listen to music and drink wine, you’re having a great time,” Jordan says.

“I think it’s just eating loads of iron and protein and zinc and minerals and things, and dopamine, maybe. You get your oysters jerk off.

The party will also be an educational affair, with a keynote lecture by University of Adelaide research associate Dominic McAfee.

Dominic will talk about the history of oyster farming along our reefs, and probe the depths (sorry) of the environmental benefits of oysters.

Just shimmering, shelled stuff

For every dozen oysters sold at Oyster Garden, $ 1 will be donated to Nature Conservancy’s Windara Native Oyster Reef, which is “Australia’s largest shell reef restoration project ever,” according to the website. organization.

The reef, created off Rogues Point in the Gulf of St. Vincent on the east coast of the Yorke Peninsula, is an attempt to revive mollusks in local waters.

In addition to being delicious, they are great for the environment. Oysters are filter feeders, which means they improve water quality and nutrient cycling.

“We need fish breeding grounds,” Jordan says of the reef.

“But we pulled it all out when we came and destroyed everything. It was also very important for the indigenous communities; for thousands and thousands of years it has been a very important part of the diet of coastal communities.

“And if we don’t do what we can now, it’s just going to get worse.”

By Jordan’s logic, every time you save at Oyster Garden you are doing your part for the environment, local producers and your taste buds.

For more information on the event and to purchase tickets, click here.