NEW ORLEANS — At Superior Seafood, it's more than common to get an order of a dozen oysters. But have you ever thought about the man behind the silver ice lined platter? His name is Jay Gallet and he's a master shucker. He says on an average day, he shucks about 2,000 oysters. For him though, it's more than just a job, it's in his DNA.
"I started as a young boy. My father, he owned oyster beds and oyster boats, so we started going at 5 years old," Gallet said. "I probably opened my first oyster at 7 years old on a boat with a hatchet."
After years of shucking now, he says it makes him happier than a clam — or oyster.
"I love doing this it’s almost as if it’s therapy to me. My quiet place, it kind of zones me in especially before the competition I get in competition mode where I kind of get tunnel vision," he said.
Most of the time, you'll find him behind the oyster bar on St. Charles, but sometimes you can catch him going for the gold. Gallet says he started competing in oyster shucking competitions late in his career, but he's already won several first-place trophies.
"On a national level, you need to be able to open two dozen fairly clean with minimal penalties, two minutes or less. The bar over the last five to 10 years has gone real high," Gallet said.
Gallet explained to us, that the judges aren't just looking for the fastest shucker, but they're also looking for the best technique.
"The criteria is completely severed from the shell, it’s not stuck to the shell you don’t have a poke in the belly, and the oyster isn’t ripped and another thing will be grit or shell or mud," he explained.
Well, he's got it. He says his best unofficial time for shucking two dozen oysters was a minute and 32 seconds, which he called "insane" and we agree. He says his best official competition time for shucking was a minute and 46 seconds — the overall time that day was two minutes and 13 seconds.
Soon he'll head to Maryland to compete in the national competition and he's confident.
"If I win the men’s I'll win the final one for sure."
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