Episode 23: Patrick McMurray, the ShuckerPaddy - a conversation with the King of Oyster Shucking.

In this lively episode of OYSTER-ology, Kevin Cox kicks off Season 2 after some globetrotting adventures. He thanks loyal listeners for their support and introduces renowned guest Patrick McMurray, aka ShuckerPaddy. Patrick shares his fascinating journey from a Toronto restaurant busboy to a world champion oyster shucker and Guiness Book World Record holder. He reveals the tricks of his trade, including his innovative oyster knife design and efficient shucking techniques. Patrick also talks about co-founding the Oyster Master Guild with Julie Qiu, an initiative to elevate oyster knowledge to sommelier status. Packed with humor and passion, this episode dives into Patrick's love for oysters, his competitive spirit, and plans to spread the oyster gospel far and wide. Get ready to shuck and chat with the best in the biz!

00:00 Welcome Back to OYSTER-ology!

01:17 Gordon Ramsey and the Oyster Shucking Challenge

02:04 Meet the ShuckerPaddy: Patrick McMurray

04:35 Patrick's Journey: From Toronto to World Champion

07:55 The Art and Science of Oyster Shucking

09:45 From Rodney's to Starfish: Building a Restaurant Legacy

10:39 Competitive Shucking: The Road to Guinness World Records

18:07 Training Gordon Ramsey and the Guinness Book Show

21:21 Mastering the Oyster Shuck: Techniques and Tips

25:58 The Art of Flipping Oysters

27:08 Designing the Perfect Oyster Knife

30:05 Mastering the Anatomy of Oysters

31:17 Breaking World Records in Oyster Shucking

34:34 The Life and Travels of ShuckerPaddy

37:01 Oyster Master Guild: Elevating Oyster Appreciation

46:17 Future Plans and Aspirations

49:26 Conclusion and Farewell

Links:

ShuckerPaddy Website & Shucking Video: (https://shuckerpaddy.ca/)

Oyster Master Guild website (https://oystermasterguild.com/)

The Oyster Companion, A Field Guide, by Patrick McMurray (https://www.amazon.com/Oyster-Companion-Field-Guide/dp/0228101581)

Swissmar website for ShuckerPaddy’s oyster knives (https://www.swissmarshop.com/collections/shucker-paddy?srsltid=AfmBOopO7v7EaWbeSJU3sdQmPljlgGN_UwWOdtMMBgWgOmWfWRyKpLMK)

Video of the 2024 World Oyster Opening Championships, Galway, Ireland (https://www.naroomaoysterfestival.com/watch-world-oyster-opening-championships/#:~:text=The%20world%20title%20is%20currently,his%20winning%20streak%20from%202023.)

Please be sure to Like and Follow OYSTER-ology wherever you listen to podcasts, and tell others about it. Every positive mention of it helps more people find the podcast!

Transcript

Episode 23 – Transcript: Patrick McMurray, ShuckerPaddy

[Bubbles]

00:00:00] 

Kevin: Hey folks, Kevin here. So I've been away from the studio for a little while taking a break to travel and learn more about this amazing oyster world. And I'm back now with the second season of OYSTER-ology which, quite honestly, I wasn't sure would even last the very first episode. 

But while I was away, you the listeners have continued to listen, follow and tell others about the podcast, and it has continued to grow into the thousands. So I wanna take a moment to thank all of YOU, my OYSTER-ology listeners, who have been so supportive of my mission of creating a gathering place for broad-based discussion of the oyster and aquaculture world and the remarkable people who are part of it.

This second season will take that mission and drive it even further, reaching deeper into the oyster world with fascinating guests from as far north as Alaska to as far south as New Zealand. I'm so excited about the episodes to come and hope that you will be too. As together we [00:01:00] discover more about this renaissance that is oysters and make new friends and contacts along the way.

So sharpen your shucking knives for a cutting edge season and welcome back to OYSTER-ology. Now let's start Shucking, shall we?

 [Bubbles]

Patrick: So I made Gordon a knife left-handed exactly the same as my right-handed knife . And so the PR people were like, if you train Gordon Ramsey at your style, do you think he'll be able to break your record of 38 oysters? I go, well if, if Chef listens to what I say and Chef decides to train by me. And if he does what I say and he works at it, he gets the job done. He could be close to 38, but I'll be at 44. If he's okay with doing all that and losing, then okay, we can do this job. They said, we'll see you on Tuesday. 

[Bubbles]

Kevin: Welcome to OYSTER-ology, a podcast about oysters, aquaculture, and everything from [00:02:00] spat to shuck. I'm your host and the Foodwalker, Kevin Cox. 

That was Patrick McMurray known around the world as the ShuckerPaddy. A moniker well earned by Patrick over the years through his competitive shucking career and educating people globally about the humble oyster and how best to shuck, serve and eat it.

Patrick is among the most accomplished, if not THE premier oyster shucking expert on the planet today. Having won countless competitions, including the World Championships. He is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most oysters shucked in a minute, and has appeared on numerous television programs, oyster festivals, and premier social events. He's opened restaurants, written books, invented a new type of shucking knife and other gear, teaches in colleges and is the co-founder of the Oyster Master Guild, an organization which is elevating the art of shucking and serving oysters into a formal oyster sommelier designation, much like wine. My conversation with Patrick covers so much of what he has done and also the intentions and mechanics of his successes, [00:03:00] and shows that there is so much more content of character to Patrick than just being a remarkable oyster shucker.

So sharpen your oyster knife and slip on your cut proof glove. As I talk about training in the sport of oyster shucking, kinetic energy, and the efficiency of motion shucking with Gordon Ramsey; the importance of always saying yes; how to French an oyster; the difference between buck-a-shuck and fine dining; how oysters really are like wine; the “flip”; the significance of 39:60; and the proper way to shuck an oyster, with restaurateur, publican, teacher, writer, inventor, World and Guinness Book Champion, and the man behind the ShuckerPaddy, Patrick McMurray.

[Bubbles]

Kevin: Patrick McMurray, the ShuckerPaddy, it is so awesome to have you as a guest on OYSTER-ology. Welcome man. 

Patrick: Thank you. Thank you very much. Nice to be here.

Kevin: How's it going? 

Patrick: Fantastic. I was in Boston [00:04:00] yesterday; did an oystery gig down there, so it was great. And then back to Toronto doing the regular stuff now. 

Kevin: So, you know, it's funny, when I first started learning about oysters several years back and started researching everything, your name and your image on the internet just kept coming up and coming up and coming up. And it's like, who the hell is this guy? 

Patrick: And he's very good at inter webby things. 

Kevin: He is a lot more than that, it seems. So anyway, for those who don't know you, of which anybody listening to OYSTER-ology, I'm sure does, you are the one and only ShuckerPaddy. And I'd like to start kinda with your background and who you are as a person and how you got to where you are in your world today. 

Patrick: Fabulous. Well, I don't know if we have enough time today, but I'll try to, I'll try to make it a good synopsis.

Um, I'm from Toronto. This, which is usually the weirdest point to start with as a, as an oyster shucker person. Most everybody in my [00:05:00] restaurants have always said, well, you must be from the maritime, it's from the East Coast or whatever. I'm like, no, I'm from Toronto, East Coast to Toronto, if you wanna go that way. And I got very good at understanding oysters because I don't have any local water. So that's sort of how I got in. That's my oyster background. But technically speaking, I've been in the restaurant trade since I was 16 years old. I started, my first job was at 14 as a butcher's lackey apprentice, uh, sweeping the sawdust vintage when there was sawdust on the actual floor.

And my job was to scrape blocks and cut meat, making sandwiches for people and and stuff. And then when they retired out, two years later, then I, then I found a job downtown Toronto, as a busboy, working at, uh, Beaujolais Restaurant, which was a fancy, uh, French-nuvo, cuisine style of restaurant top 10 in the city.

I had no idea what top 10 in the city meant about that time. I was just like, I got a job and I get to eat food, too? As most 16-year-old kids were like, I can eat all day long. Uh, so I thought the restaurant trade was fun back then. I thought, Hey, this is a this is a cool [00:06:00] gig when people are out, they're having, they're eating food.

The food is great. I get to make some things. I learned a lot about food service in that first iteration of, my food service world. Uh, cappuccino's, coffees, desserts. I, I went from the beginning to the end, in a meal and then I thought this would be a really cool thing to do as an adult. But restaurant's not a real job.

No, you need a nine to five. My parents are teachers nine to five, Monday to Friday, and those summers, I tell you, two months off, let's go to be a teacher. So that's what I did. I, I lined myself up to become a teacher and thought theoretically when I retire as a teacher, I'll have enough money, yeah.

16-year-old kids to build a restaurant. that was my life goal at 16 years old. Uh, so I went through kinesiology, strangely enough, the sports sciences at University of Toronto. and through that I was also working in the restaurant trade, but I also started running pubs and I became the social director for the [00:07:00] undergrads. 'Cause there was no social director, 

So with my thoughts towards this, I was training myself to become some sort of food service entertainer type of person. I got outta university after five years for a four year degree. Uh, and I came out the other side and became an oyster shucker. Yes, my parents were very, very happy.

But, uh, I worked, I started working at Rodney's Oyster House 'cause I wanted to work someplace fun while I was waiting to get into Teacher's College, of which I never really got into Teacher's College. I ended up working at Rodney's, figuring out I can pay the bills in this this gig called a restaurant game.

And Rodney's Oyster House was insanely fun. it's a very good historically correct place to go for oysters in the city of Toronto. And I worked there for eight and a half years in the original location. We did everything up front. We shucked up front, we did steaming, we did floating, we did the doors, the tables. So we learned a lot about dealing with oyster. We had a great variety of oysters that we could get.

And that's where my kinesiology going back to sports [00:08:00] sciences, sort of clicked in as well. And so I came up with a technique, 'cause I was watching the techniques that the shuckers were working with, and I was like, it is kind of inefficient in the structure, the biomechanics of it. So I restructured my thought of training both hands to do something different and really doing that. But it's not for the competition, it's for actually efficiency in work. 'cause on a Friday night at eight o'clock, the person who just sits down wants to be fed in three minutes. Meanwhile, 42 other people have ordered ahead of him. And so they, I'm like, you're gonna have to wait. But they can't 'cause they're customers. So the push from the customer challenges us on a regular shift to become faster, quicker, better. And the art is being faster without killing the look of the oyster.

So our rule of thumb was that we have to be clean first, then we will become quick. So you couldn't work a shift at night on the knife until you made a nice looking plate. And that's part of the deal of learning [00:09:00] how to become a shucker, is you have to make a nice cleanly produced plate of oysters, then you can work.

And at Rodney's you, you worked lunch and dinner and so you started by working lunches 'cause it was slower. And once you got to a Friday lunch, you could work a Monday dinner and once you got to a Friday dinner and you can work a Friday dinner by yourself, then you could become lone shucker. So that's sort of how it kind of went and you challenged yourself, but the crew really pushed you as well.

And I built on those ideas. And then there came an opportunity from some family friends who were in construction. So we wanna build a restaurant but we want you to run it. Would you like to run a restaurant? That was my opportunity, right. And so I was like, okay, this is great. Um, yeah, I have ideas of what I wanna do. So that's where I built Starfish. Starfish is my first restaurant, 2001. I opened up, in an old building in the city of Toronto. And back in early 2000 there was no social media, there was media. And I called all paper media to say that the [00:10:00] restaurant was open. And I focused on. fantastic oysters, that not a lot of people had. And we had this wonderful plethora of oysters from United States, from Canada, from Ireland, from France, from New Zealand, you know, and I had at one point, by 2007, I had 20 oysters on the bed for a 70 seat restaurant. Wow. 

Kevin: Is Starfish still operating or are you still involved in it? 

Patrick: No, in my, in my head I still love it and I still, I, I talk about it as if it's in the present and my, my students are like, where's your restaurant? It retired in 2015. I flipped it. So now it's called Pearl Diver. 

Kevin: Tell me how you got into competitive shucking. Like who does that and why?

Patrick: I kind of, tripped into the whole thing. It's sort of the oyster found me and the competition's found me, and I was not looking for this. Going back to Rodney's Oyster House. I was hired on a Friday. I started on a Monday. Two weeks later they go, okay, there's a festival we're putting on and it's the [00:11:00] Ontario Oyster Festival. There's a shucking contest and you're going in. This is all the guys who worked there. I'm like going in, I, I've just washed oysters. I've barely shucked oysters for chowder. Like, I can't go in. He goes, everybody goes into contest. Rodney's Oyster House at the time of the crew that was there was everyone was all about the competition, 

So I said, okay, two weeks in, I'm gonna do this, whatever. I just watched everyone else do this, all I wanna do is not come in last. So I came in 13th outta 14th. The 14th person disqualified. So I, I basically came in last, but the winner got to go to Prince Edward Island where there's this Canadian championship. I said, Hey, well hold on one second. so there's a Canadian championship? Yes. Like, you don't know. I'm like, yeah, I don't know. I'm just new two weeks in. So if you win the Canadians, then you go to Ireland for the Worlds. So I said to myself, I go, so you are working at this gig, this Rodney's Oyster House place, an oyster thing. You have a good time. The customers are great, oysters are cool, [00:12:00] we're shucking oysters. There's a contest and if you win, you get to go to Ireland to go. I'm in. I would like to do this.

Kevin: So you started competing because of that and you're working at Rodney And you at some point must've decided, Hey, I like this competition stuff and I'm doing pretty well and I'm progressing along. And you made it like your specialty, right. 

Patrick: I've been very lucky with the, with the challenges that were put forward to me and I, I, I met them and I, I got, I've got those awards.

Kevin: Okay. Quick sidebar here. While it's pretty obvious that Patrick is no wallflower in an interview. He's quite humble about his competitive success and quick to skip over his many victories and focus on deeper, more important ideas. But to be clear, no one has achieved more success than Patrick in the world of competitive oyster shucking, working his way up to winning the World Championships of Oyster Opening in Galway, Ireland in 2002, and earning three Guinness Book records for shucking oysters: 8,840 oysters in one [00:13:00] hour as part of Team Canada, 1,114 in one hour on his own. And a whopping 39 clean shucked oysters in 60 seconds. Think about that. 39 in 60 seconds.

Patrick: I've got, I've got a Guinness book, I've got the World Championship. and you know, a friend of mine said to me after I won the worlds, he goes, now listen. You've won the World Championships. No one can ever take that away from you. You use that to your best degree and, um, that's why I use it. Because people, oh, you won this year. I go, no, it's 2002. They're like, well, what have you been doing since then? I go resting on my laurels. What else would you do? You know? Do I have to 

Kevin: Well, I think you've been doing more than that. 

Patrick: I mean, yeah, no, that's, and that's sort of the idea. I try to translate it and, use this vehicle to promote oysters and what the farmers do more than anything else, really in the end.  So when I'm on stage, instead of just shucking oysters and winning the big check, the first thing I do is I thank the farmers: thank you for coming out to the show, thank you to the shuckers. But first of all, we have to thank the farmers. Because if [00:14:00] without the farmers, we can't shuck, you know, that's sort of how it goes. 

So I had an idea to do a training program. I had already started working on my own oyster knife because all oyster knives were not the correct shape for my hand. So using my kinesiology degree, I put that to work, designing and building my own oyster knife at that point in time. They're all handmade, of epoxy putty and stainless-steel blade. And people thought I was a little bit on the crazy side, but it worked way better as an efficient transfer of kinetic energy from your body to the knife tip that's the tool that you're working.

So, I decided to do sports-specific training for the world championship. I'm coming from the Canadian Championship, which is 18 oysters to a world championship, which is 30 oysters. So, you're going from a sprinter to a middle-distance runner. It's not necessarily the same gig. You gotta do sports specific training. So that's what I did that year. I ended up winning the World Championships in Galway, Ireland. I got invited to go on a food [00:15:00] TV television show and they wanted to do something fun for TV. Well watching me shuck oysters for two and a half minutes is while like watching paint dry. You see the top of my head, my hands moving around. But I suggested this Guinness Book thing. Which is set for 27 oysters in a minute. I said, let's just do that. And they said, sure. Made for good tv. Went in eventually shucked 33 oysters in that minute. They put the tape, threw it, the Guinness, voila, we got Guinness Book of World Records. And that's where I found out that the Guinness Book becomes this catalyst for great promotional vehicle for any business. And I, not like I wanted to or expected or did that, but that's where I became in this Guinness Book world. And I understand why people strive for doing as many Guinness Books possible. but you know, I don't wanna smash watermelons in my head 'cause it's not practical. I'm a practical person saying oyster shucking is the thing that I do. 

But I don't focus completely on competition. still to this day, you know, people that, why don't you keep challenging yourself with the Guinness Book? I'm [00:16:00] like, well, 'cause nobody's calling me. Like when someone calls me and it's gotta be at the Gordon Ramsey level, and I'm like, when they call, then, oh no, yeah, I'll go do that. But otherwise I will rest on my laurels and do what I'm doing here and still continue shucking oysters.

Kevin: Now, you're not competing anymore these days. Is that right? 

Patrick: I could if I wanted to, but I find it, it's more, it's better for me. I get invited to, then host, and promote and push the youngers to move forward. I'm, I'm not saying that I'd win all of them. Amon Clark is the person that wins all of them. Anti Olympic, five-time world champion. He's the guy that wins all of them.

Kevin: So these are the young Turks that are coming up in the world, nipping at your heels. 

Patrick: These, these are guys are top notch right now. And, and, uh, Chris Finocchio here in Canada, like, to watch him open oysters. it, it, you shutter, you know, you're like, that's so cool. But people ask, why don't you compete anymore? You know, Guiness book and why don't you try to break it? I'm like, until Gordon Ramsey calls me [00:17:00] and there's a show involved, and it works out. Otherwise, other than that, if you're gonna do it in my living room here, it's not necessarily worth it. 'cause I don't have restaurants. I want to work it out as a promotional vehicle as well. I do enjoy it. I like going to the festivals, but I like going to the festivals more for promoting things and making sure that people are doing stuff shucking properly is more exciting to me now than it is to see how fast I can do stuff. You know, it's, it's a different time and place, so I still think, you know, I do value the idea in the contest, but I think there's a better value for chefs, restauranteurs, and shuckers to understand that the well shucked oyster is more valuable to them than a quickly shucked oyster one.

My focus on customer satisfaction through perfection and oyster shucking, that is my challenge to me. And if I've been asked how many times I made a perfect plate, I'm like maybe three times that I've made a perfect plate in my point of view out of 2.3 million [00:18:00] oysters shucked and years of service, 

Kevin: You're not a perfectionist and you don't hold yourself to a very high level obviously. But in fact, you have shucked with Gordon Ramsey.

Patrick: Mm-hmm. Yeah, this is true.

Kevin: And I saw some video clips of you, uh, doing some stuff with him. Did you teach Gordon how to shuck or did he claim to already know? 

Patrick: Well, he was running a Guinness Book show and so for 2017 he was doing a show where he'd do eight weeks, uh, live f word live eight weeks long, eight different food competitions, all Guinness Book related.

Chef Ramsey Gordon. Ramsey is a very smart individual, very business-minded, like when you work with the Guinness Book, and this is what he did, he signed a deal with the Guinness Book. I'm gonna do this show. I want a book every single week. We'll bring in your judges, we'll do all this, but I want to be printed in the book.

'cause that was his goal was to be printed in the book. Um, the book is the third most widely printed book annually behind the [00:19:00] Bible, the Quran, the Guinness Book of World Records.

Kevin: No kidding.

Patrick: So as a smart business person, he's like, yeah, I want be in that. So for Chef Ramsey, the PR people calls me up at Caley Cottage on a Friday night where I was too busy, I can't hear a thing that they're saying, blah, blah, blah, Guinness book, blah, blah, blah. Come in shuck, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, you know, I don't do this that much anymore. I'm busy with my restaurants. I can't really focus my time on competition. Who are we talking about again? They go, we said at the beginning, I'm like, look, I can't hear you. The rest business is busy. What? What? Who's calling? Gordon Ramsey Show is calling. We want you. I go, I can make myself available for that show. Yeah, that's fine. 'cause I knew, I knew not even knowing the context of it, I knew that it would be a great promotional vehicle and all that I tell my students when I teach at school now, the only job as an owner, the only job you have as an owner is to push bums into seats. Promoting, talking about your restaurant, getting people to come into your restaurants, and Gordon Ramsey is professional at this. So, yes, [00:20:00] I had to teach Gordon Ramsey how I shucked oysters.

I actually made him a left-handed oyster knife. The blade tip has to be different for Guinness Book than normal oyster shucking, and that's what most normal, normal, normal people know. Normal shuckers don't understand. They go with their regular knife, their regular style back to kinesiology. You look at the anatomy of what you're working with and my job is to open up oysters, so depending on the oyster and my fingers are a certain size, so I need a blade that opens up an oyster to a specific size, specific style technique, everything.

So I made Gordon a knife left-handed exactly the same as my right-handed knife 'cause. I said, Let's give him a knife. And so the PR people said, do you think if you train Gordon Ramsey at your style, do you think that he'll break your record? 'Cause he really wants to break records. So do you think he'll be able to break your record of 38 oysters? I go, well if, if Chef listens to what I say and Chef decides to train by me, [00:21:00] he'll have to listen to that first.

And if he does what I say and he works at it, he gets the job done. He could be close to 38, but if he's okay, I'll be at 44. That's my outside number that I think I can do. If he's okay with doing all that and losing, then okay, we can do this job. They said, we'll see you on Tuesday. And he's a super nice guy too. 

Kevin: So then this leads to the inevitable question, and I can't think of a better person on the planet to answer this and that is: How do you shuck an oyster? Everybody's tried, everybody does various different ways of doing it.

Patrick: Exactly.

Kevin: And we, we make scrambled egg oysters all the time. But how do you shuck an oyster properly? 

Patrick: This is an apprentice thing. This is why Oyster Master Guild is sort of setting up a situation where we can teach people about oyster because it's totally and utterly apprenticed.

I learned in Toronto, I have no local water, so therefore I learned on all the oysters. We got five species. I would work with five species when I was allowed to, and I've worked with my own technique [00:22:00] that works well on all species. And that's the reason I created my knife is one knife can work on all oyster species and all sizes. It doesn't matter. I don't have time to change blades just because a customer orders two of 20 different types. So I wanna do one that covers all. 

So my technique is of that style. So I use two hands independently.I,  I am a tabletop shucker versus an in-hand shucker. You get better leverage. I have  tripod, you get better leverage with three points of contact. Most competitive oyster shuckers who shuck in their hand will draw the oyster to their belly. If you watch the US nationals, in-hand shuckers have a big wet spot on the middle of their apron. Because they hold onto it as the third point of contact, My third point of contact is on the table. So my tray has got a little tiny puck three inches diameter is the only location where the oyster hits all the same time.

This is about the [00:23:00] efficiencies. So you hold it down with your oyster hand and you open with your knife hand knife never leaves your hand. You pick up the oyster with your knife hand, you place it down. You hold it with your oyster hand. You hold it in a position where the hinge is pointing towards the knife tip, so I'm right handed. The hinge points towards my right hand cup side down versus flat side. Flat side up, cup side, down to hold the liquor, as much liquor as possible in the actual oyster. And then the idea of this oyster, it's attached in two major places. One is the hinge. Now the shell. And it's got an elastin property to it. That's, that allows the oyster to stay open in the water at all times. And a muscle called the Adductor Muscle that basically is attached at the bottom shell and the top shell. And it holds the two shells together when it's outside the water. So in the water, it releases and doesn't work at keeping the shell open, the elastic property in the shell keeps it open.

[00:24:00] So my job as a shucker is to break hinge, cut adductor, sever the bottom, serve the customer. It's about a five-step process. So what I'll do, I'll hold onto the oyster with my oyster hand hold onto it with more pressure. So it's less pressure on the knife. Hand into the hinge and I'll wiggle it in. Turning it like a key in a lock. Wiggle it till it sets. The knife tip doesn't wanna go in any further. At that point in time, you turn it quarter turn, turn down supinate, which means you hold a bowl of soup, turn down because the blade also rotates in a position that the knife will shave across the top and butter spread across the oyster, so you won't injure the oyster meat. So crack the hinge in cut across the top. At that point, the oyster top is, is loose and you toss it. My knife is in this position here against my chest. Then I turn the oyster 180 degrees, so the muscle is closer to me, hold onto it. Knife comes [00:25:00] back down without turning my hand severs underneath there I have a little notch in my blade.

Oyster shells are cupped. So the knife goes in underneath the outer rim of the cup shell and severs the adductor muscle at the bottom in one go versus several sever the bottom. And then place it on your tray and your knife hand goes and picks up the next oyster. And so it ends up being this process. 

Kevin: What is your view, in the world of shucking with what I've always heard referred to as the Flip. The flip. And that is where the flip. Yeah, tell me about the flip and what you think about it.

Patrick: The flip is a thing, and I I recommend it in certain situations, but to get to world championship level, you get docked points for flipping, right? So back to kinesiology sports specific training. I train myself to open the oyster without having to flip the oyster. 

Flipping is required when the oyster does not look perfect. If you've cut [00:26:00] it, if you've mar it in any way, you can go in very quickly and do a little flip. And it looks beautiful. Now, Australian oyster culture requires oysters to be flipped because the belly will be very fat and full and plump and looks way better.

Anatomically it looks odd because oysters, grow to the right and if you flip it, the oyster is going to the left and the shell goes to the right. Oh, interesting. So comically, it's not in that perfect mode, but that's all in aesthetic pleasure. Flipping the oyster in a catering position allows the consumer in the North American market to understand that the oyster is loose and ready to go. They just wanna slide it in. They don't wanna work at it. when they come to my joint or they have me shuck oysters for them, they're like, it's still stuck in the shell. I go, Hmm. It's not, it's just, it's bang on. You'll see, just give it a little push and they go, oh, look at that. Just woo. Yeah. But if I'm going to a big gig, I'll make sure it's fully loose. I won't leave it attached to the back. I'll just make sure it's fully [00:27:00] loose. But yeah, flipping, you can do it, but if you want to get to world championship level, you'll have to learn not to flip 'cause you'll get dock points 

Kevin: So I have two or three of your knives, long blade. Short blade. And I also have your tray with the hockey puck wooden, center that you've described. 

Patrick: Yep. 

Kevin:And so your oyster gear, this is stuff you designed yourself and, explain why you've designed the pistol grip on the knife 

Patrick: I had a knife maker that made me of my first, I, I asked for my specific knife by a knife maker and it was good. It wasn't exactly fit because it missed out one third of my hand, the, the pinky to the bottom. It would fit in the bottom part. But The more contact you have with the body to the tool that you're using tennis or ski or baseball bat, the more contact with the hand the better the kinetic energy from the body to the sport that you're doing. So took that theory and I go, I need a bigger oyster knife that fits my hand specifically [00:28:00] and I'm thinking injection molded ski boot. 'cause this was the late, early nineties and I you know, new of injection molded ski boot back then, So I wanted to figure out some way of molding my hand to get a knife maker to make it.

And I go to the hardware store and I go, I need some putty to make this. And I found this stuff called, tech steel. It's an epoxy putty, two part epoxy putty that sets up as strong as steel. And I'm like, if I take a steel blade and shove it into this putty, will it hold onto it and can I work with it? So I said, I'll spend the 30 bucks. And as a young kid, 30 bucks was a lot of money. So I spent the 30 bucks, I got that, took a blade, carved it out, jammed it into the putty, made this thing, it looked like a lump of clay. Didn't look like the pistol grip quite yet, but I put this in. And I used a liquid that will solidify into a plastic dip called PlastiDip. And I dipped this 'cause then it would gimme the grip that I needed. 

I put this on and start working with it. I go, [00:29:00] this works good. I made another one, another one by iteration four. It starts shaping into this pistol grip. And then I started doing more of them and I, I noticed every time I get the fit, I'm physically moving it and for some reason the pistol grip works. 'Cause I wanted to have a finger guard over my finger. 'cause if you look at a well worn oyster knife, it is well worked by oyster shells. And so you wanted something that really protected your hand as the same time, like a regular guard, but it's not in the way of actually functioning and over time I was working at this and, and that's where we created the pistol grip. And there's no other real reason for it, but, efficiency of motion. And direct kinetic energy. It creates a fulcrum. I have a 134 degrees between tip and tail. If you rotate it around the blade axis, that fulcrum. levers open the oyster with less force. So I can open up most any oyster with three fingers of force at the back of the oyster knife. So it takes very little force to actually [00:30:00] open it up. So that's sort of the theory that was in my head and that's how I had to put it together. 

Kevin: So it's a, as much almost finesse as it is force. 

Patrick: When I watch people open oysters, and this is a case in point, if anyone's doing that, if you're forcing it so much that your hand is shaking and your blade is bending. Stop, calm down, bring it back, find out why the reason is, and generally speaking it, the most reason is because the oyster, it has a thing on the hinge and it's called the Process and the Recess, the Recess is on the, on the bottom part. It's a little trough, and the Process is stuck so that the oyster hinge won't move sideways. It's like a joint, like your elbow joint's got the same sort of thing. The process is usually if you can't get your knife in the way you're normally doing, the process may be elongated and be a longer process, and you might not know that till you open it up and go, what the actually, oh my God, look at the length of this thing. It's huge. So your knife, you'd have to actually get around the process, 

So learning the anatomy of the oyster, [00:31:00] that's kinesiology. Again, learning anatomy is a thing. So if you're in the oyster shucking, learning the anatomy of the oyster is kind of important to actually know what you're doing. Eventually you will learn this and be able to go in blind and just not look at what you're doing and just do that. 

Kevin: Yeah. Now, was it with this knife or this design that got you to ultimately, what is the, I guess still the current, Guinness Book of World Records Speed and that's 39 oysters in 60 seconds.

Patrick: 39 oysters in a minute. 1000 one 14 in an hour. Yes. 

Kevin: I have to tell you, as somebody who shucks a lot of oysters for family and friends, that's just incomprehensible to me. 

Patrick: It, it's 11 boxes. If you told me now you said you're gonna shuck 11 boxes in an hour.Like, you so funny. Uh, Yeah. I attribute everything in the oyster world of, my success in the competitive end of things it's kinesiology degree and putting it to work. Now, my parents are happy. They, you know, five year, four year degrees. That's right. Five [00:32:00] years using those theories, putting it into practice, creating a knife that makes it more efficient to open oyster. And then learning the anatomy and changing your technique based on the anatomy of the oyster, which generally works on all five species. Again, the knife blade works on the Olympias to like the gargantuan, uh, gigas oysters from the Pacific, you know, the big beach oysters and everything in between. 

Kevin: So, do you sharpen the blade of your knife at all? 

Patrick: I will, I do have a grinder. I highly recommend everyone who wants to get it or is in this business If, if shuckers are having a hard time, your knife tip is too wide or too blunt. It depends. Every stock knife is gonna be a little bit different. But I work with Swissmar, the group that's putting it together for my knife, and that's why it's available. And that's another story. And he was a patron at Starfish. Saw the knife, thought it was a crazy story, let's put it into retail. I'm like, Okie dokie. It was a, it was luck of the draw, of, what happens.

But I still will put a little tip on my [00:33:00] blade 'cause it will be more efficient. So I'll go to the grinder and just do. And then I'm like, oh, everything's happy now. You do need to tune your knives. Every chef knows that they have to sharpen your knives, sharp knives, cut food, blunt knives, cut you. So even a stock oyster knife with a safety tip that, if you look straight at the tip, if it's blunted, it's too dull. You have to have a sharp tip. You don't have to have a sharp edge. I call it letter opener. For those who are vintage enough to know what letter openers are. It's just enough to open a letter. You wanna glide across the shell, but you need a tip to dig in if that hinge is gonna be hard for you. Gotta dig in a little bit. So the tip of the knife is something that I highly recommend most people to look at. 

Kevin: Now you've written at least two books on oysters. I think you've written The Oyster Companion, which is a field guide, and then also Consider the Oyster.

Patrick: Yeah, So one day one publisher came in and goes, do you wanna write a book? I went, sure, I'd love to write a book. [00:34:00] I tell all my students at school now, I go, when opportunity knocks, when someone knocks on that door and says, do you want to, you say Yes. Until your mom says, or your wife says, you can't do it no more, or you're not making money or whatever. Right? It's not valuable to you, then you don't do it. So, but go, go do that. So yeah, that's what I did. And know, wrote a book, took a year or plus to, to write it because I'm not very good at that. But it apparently what it, it people have said, it sounds like my voice.

Kevin: Well, the books are great. Um, I, I've read both of them. I have them both. They're on my shelf right here in front of me. 

Patrick: Thank you. 

Kevin: And they're excellent books. so now what is the life of ShuckerPaddy today in the context of oysters. I know you go around and do a lot of shucking, but in New York, after this Oyster Master Guild thing, everybody was leaving, going out to bars, having oysters, and before you went out, I saw you alone pushing a cart filled with all of your gear and I think coolers with oysters 

Patrick: Yep. 

Kevin: And all of your stuff. And I [00:35:00] thought, What's it like to do what you do? Do you work alone mostly? Do you have your own setup, or how does it work for you? 

Patrick: Yeah, it is not lonely. It is a, an alone thing. I, I learned this as, a server. Uh, one of my basic lines, shucker makes a mess. Shucker cleans a mess. Mm-hmm. So, work cleanly, and we teach that at culinary school as it is, if you're a chef, you work cleanly, work smart, work clean. 

Kevin: Yep. 

Patrick: You do a gig, you follow through, you finish the gig. I don't have the, I don't have an, I'm not Chef Ramsey. I don't have an entourage and a car waiting for me. I have to drag stuff and when I'm catering, I'm, I'm on my own. So when people call up, they go, we need a catering gig of, uh, a thousand oysters. I'm like, okay. And uh, how many people do you need? I go, just me. They're like, what? They go, well, you'll need some help. I'm like. No, just find me the ice and get me the stuff, and like, I'll, I'll work, make it work. I have my method to my madness of how you go through over a course of an evening, 800 to a thousand oysters.

I'm [00:36:00] doing more guest appearances at restaurants now. So what, which is my favorite, it's called Show Up And Shuck. I said, chef, you're gonna get the oysters, you organize it, get it ready for me. I show up, I lay knife to shell, and then I go and they go, lovely. And I go. So that's, that's the easy peasy way of doing things. And we get to do stuff along the way. 

So the life of Patrick right now is, is last year was my number one travel around the world situation. I believe Air Canada said you took 26 trips with Air Canada. That filters down to 13. 13 actual planned flights. That's plus, that's only Air Canada. There was other ones in involved as well. So I, I, my tagline for 24 was Dubai to Shanghai everywhere. 

Kevin: Every time I saw you online, you were in another country doing another gig. It was like, oh my God, this guy never stops. 

Patrick: It's really my poor parents. They go, Patrick, you're in, you're in Shanghai. I go, no, my home right now, I'm working. Right. What it says on the thing that you're in Shanghai. I go, that was my story from like last week. So it [00:37:00] gets around. 

Kevin: So now you're spending a lot of time with Oyster Master Guild, and describe what Oyster Master Guild is, what you guys are doing, that sort of thing. 

Patrick: Julie and I have been working on this probably on and off in mental thoughts for like over 10 years. And there were some other folks who we came and go and whatnot, but we can never get a moment to lock it down. And then it was, I believe during COVID, Julie just, I love her. She, she just goes, let's just do this. I'm like, let, okay, let's just go. 

Kevin: One of the things that I find so fascinating about Oyster Master Guild and what you and Julie are doing is, you know, you talk to people about oysters as one would with wine. And, to formalize that process and procedure and body of knowledge that a sommelier with wine might have to build that around oysters is a very logical thing to me.

Patrick: I get frustrated by looking at Instagram and watching people post up this beau, look at my beautiful plate. I'm [00:38:00] like, it's been. pre-chewed oysters. And I'm like, so I've, I, and I don't know how I'm, I'm the nice guy. I, I play good cop. I cannot go online and say, this is awful, terrible. 

So out of frustration of what goes on in the general population and knowing that there's no way of learning this is where Oyster Master Guild comes from. And so we wanted a way of being able to teach people how to do what we've done.

Like I've said before, this is an apprenticed world. How to shuck oysters, how to serve, and you learn from whoever teaches you. Again, I've, I'm fortunate because I learned in Toronto, which has no local water, if I learned in New York, I'd learn about Blue Point and not really go much past that, right? If I learned in Seattle, I'd be on the West coast and not learn past that. I'm in Toronto, we got nothing. So we learned about importing, so that's where I got the whole thing about getting all the different varieties and my clients really liked it. So, I bring in all the different oysters and I tell you the stories of them. [00:39:00] Then we taste them. Then they enjoy them. If they don't like them, that's fine. You don't have to like all of them, but that's how you get good at it.

And that's where Oyster Master Guild sort of stems from those concepts. And talking with Julie and, her travels and frustrations and say, we have to teach people this stuff. And I go, great. So let's do it. And that's sort of where it came from. And she is the consummate marketer and, her specialty is making things look just right. Mm-hmm. 

I do not do anything unless JQ tells me to do so. And that's what I've learned in the past, is surrounding yourself with excellent, talented people. We work together, we make fun. And that's sort of how it happened. And here we are with Oyster Master Guild and hopefully people are understanding it and, uh, people are getting it. Even clients again in Boston, I put up the little tasting wheel. People ask the, there's, I'd say about 10% of the 150 people there would ask questions about the tasting wheel. How do you do this properly? And then I would explain to them and tell 'em about Oyster Master Guild. And they think this is a fantastic [00:40:00] idea 'cause I'd like to learn more. So it's the learners that really want to learn the thing that really want to get into it. 

Kevin: How do you do that though? How do you teach somebody to identify, you know, flavor profiles of oysters and be able to talk about them as a sommelier might with wine? 

Patrick: Well, the word sommelier is, is easy to understand for most normal food going people, they understand what a sommelier, a person who's knowledgeable about wine. And wine is globally thought of. You know, there's different regions. one of the first questions that gave me this light bulb was back again in the nineties at Rodney's Oyster House. And 'cause we had 10, 15 different types of oysters and someone asked, what's the difference between an east coast and a west coast oyster? Mm-hmm. And, you know, I go, well, east Coast tastes salty sweet West coast is ocean, sea salt, sweet cream, melon, cucumber. And he's calling bullshit. There was no way I go, well, first off, don't put any sauce [00:41:00] on it like you normally do. Chew it up. Breathe in like a sommolier tells you about wine. and you'll see, I'll leave it to you. 10 minutes later, the guy comes back and he's like, holy crap. I had no idea. I go, yeah, you're covering a cocktail sauce and all you know, Rodney, it's 15 sauces. And I'm like, take all of that away. Mother Nature created this thing. See what it tastes like. You know, give that a shot. And they go, this is, I've never experienced anything like this. 

So you are talking like a sommelier . They go, well, there's five species. And you think about grape species. Pinot Noir is a specific grape species, but it grows in France, it grows in Ontario. It grows in Australia. Each area is gonna be different. So the same east coast oyster that you grow from PEI to New York to Florida, different regions, same species, flavor. It parallels. So those are the very early points in my world of where I was thinking like this. And it didn't [00:42:00] really develop until I got to Starfish. And when I was offered that point, when that publisher came and says, do you wanna write a book? I went, yeah, yeah, I do. That's where I drew the tasting wheel. And those thoughts came out in that concept of the five species and talking about that in the chapter of what the flavors are generally speaking. And I was lucky as well because I could get European oysters, I could get New Zealand as well as North American oysters into Toronto. And I had that ability to really showcase to my clients, say, look at the difference. Here's a, here's a Pacific Oyster from France, from Ireland, from British Columbia, go and they go, holy, what's the difference? I'm like, this is the wild Atlantic way. This is Ireland. This is a very soft, elegant sea salt. This is French and this is beautiful herbaceous, and it's very British Columbia. And they're like, blah. And they, they went insane. So it was one of those things where I get feedback from my clients right away. 

 And they would [00:43:00] understand that this concept is interesting and, and valuable. But it took years to develop. and until Julie really kind of said, okay, let's come on, let's go. Yeah, okay, let's do this.

So it's still a, a rock up a hill moment, but it's still there. Mm-hmm. And, and if you think backwards, and Julie and I used to say this, said, well, someone who wrote the first concept of wine sommelier writings had to start somewhere. Yeah. And so we're like, all right, we're gonna start. 

Kevin: Well, I think you're off, off to an incredible start and, I think that everybody in the food world is seeing that as evidenced by the rave reviews that OMG is getting Fast Company, all these other magazines, everybody's saying like, you guys are really onto something here. And it makes as much sense with oysters as it does with wine 

Patrick: And we hope to, uh, to, to showcase that to restaurateurs and chefs and think beyond the buck-a-shuck where putting the value back into understanding it, like wine. You can [00:44:00] have buck-a-shuck wine, you totally can have that box wine that, that bog Standard house, house wine. Uh. But is it something that you would write home about? No. That's what our wine list is all about, and that's what our oyster list is all about. To get the right people to be involved and to understand it and showcase it that way. I think restaurants will really have a better understanding and put it in the forefront rather than just say, Hey, we're gonna use it for happy hour. You know? And so to create those things becomes a, a valuable system to do something interesting for the restaurant trade.

So a version of Oyster Master Guild teachings would go into, my ideal situation would be certified and gone into a culinary school. And people can learn at culinary level. So we wanna be able to teach chefs and young chefs the world of oyster. And it could be a subsection of poissionier, a fish section, but something really well done, 'cause it is, [00:45:00] it can be its own business. 

Kevin: So I I was gonna ask if you have a favorite oyster, but that's a stupid question, because they vary so much. But do you have a preferred kind of flavor profile in oysters? 

Patrick: Ocean. If I'm gonna go for an oyster, I want Ocean out of it. The bigger, bolder, crazier flavor profile that you're gonna have is interesting to me, it's not everyone's cup of tea. I say 10% of people who dine at restaurants are gonna be oyster people. Of those oyster people, 10% of them are gonna be the big, bold ocean people. 

I had a client once found out we had the Olympia and love them, right? He said, oh, you got the Olympia in? 24 Olympia, bottle of Chablis, don't talk to me. No problem. Oops. Somebody who knows what they like. No, exactly. He sat there and he ate and he savored each one. He understood the job at hand to enjoy this oyster for what it is. 

It's such complexity that it's really mind boggling of how mother nature can do this type of thing. [00:46:00] So those are the oysters that I like. The rare and wonderful oyster is where you want to go to, again, with the wine world, you can have your cheap and cheerful wine, and then you can have your expensive wine. Is it expensive to the point where you're just blowing money? Or is it expensive for an experience? 

Kevin: So, what's the next five years for ShuckerPaddy looking like?

Patrick: Uh, continuing in the oyster world? Um, still doing what I'm doing. Yeah, teaching is still my number one thing that I like to do. So I teach at Centennial College. With OMG, developing that, finishing off level three and creating level four and then just working that so that it builds itself into what it should be, which is like any sommelier course. We wanna get this also sort of into other culinary schools. So I really wanna focus on all of that. And, you know, would love to do something with a hotel where they want to have a proper best done oyster bar possible. And I wanna do [00:47:00] more than one. So it's like, uh, I wanna do work with a brand. I like Fairmont a lot here in Toronto. I like odd spaces. When I was in Boston, I was at the Four Seasons.

they had this wonderful space underneath a stairwell. I went, that's perfect for a six person omakase style oyster bar right in the front window. Brilliant. So I wanna do that. I wanna do a cruise line. I don't know why, uh, but I wanna do a foodie cruise line to, again, showcase oysters in a light from one port to another. If you think of a transatlantic, you start in Miami, you get all the east coast oysters, the west coast that you can get from North America, and you have this wonderful oyster brother that goes across, you hit Europe, get to European oysters, and go into where you're going there, and you travel and collect the product that's gonna showcase that flavor of that region.

Kevin: I'm hearing a global floating oyster trail. 

Patrick: It's plausible if you've got a food forward cruise line. I spoke with Virgin Atlantic. their executive chef at the time he goes, that's [00:48:00] a great idea. Let us build the boat first and then we'll get back to you. And then pandemic happened. So that's on hold. But I have other cruise lines that would be, I think, brilliant at doing this and we can have a lot of fun.

And I have this tour of Ireland that is ridiculously good in my head. And it would be a tour that ends and starts at the Galway Oyster Festival in the end of September. and I've got a guy over there that actually sets up tours that thinks it's a good idea. But you know, these are things that I still want to be on the creative side of creative of the oyster, creative of the restaurant world, and teaching 

Kevin: Hardly resting on your laurels. By the way. 

Patrick: There's a book or two as well. it's in my head, but I've gotta focus on Oyster Master Guild first. My first number one priority. When we've got that sort of in the bag. I've got other projects that I wanna work on. 

Kevin: Uh, Patrick, you make my head spin with all the things that you're doing and that you want to keep doing. You definitely will have to be a return guest any number of times. And I will also have links to your books, your [00:49:00] website, to Oyster Master Guild of course, and other things that we've talked about so that people can go to the show notes and see the magic that is ShuckerPaddy. I just would like to sit around with several dozen shucked oysters and a bottle of wine or two and just talk to you for hours. But I can't thank you enough for being my guest. it's been super exciting. So thank you again so much. 

Patrick: You got it. Keep on shucking.

Kevin: Well, that's it for this episode of OYSTER-ology. Thanks so much to my ShuckerPaddy guest, Patrick McMurray. Links to Patrick's website as well as to his books, his knives, the Oyster Master Guild, a great video of him shucking the way he described, and a clip of the 2024 Oyster opening World Championships are included in the show notes along with this transcript, so be sure to check 'em out. And please follow OYSTER-ology wherever you listen to podcasts. The more followers we get, the more will discover us too. And if you like this episode or wanna say anything about it, please leave a [00:50:00] comment. I read every one. Thanks so much for listening, and be sure to join us again next time when we pry open the shell of another interesting OYSTER-ology topic.

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