So what made them the luxury food that they are today?

所以是什麼原因使他們成為今日這般的奢華食物？

Oysters have been around for a while.

生蠔存在已久。

Estimates put the shellfish at around 300 million years old, at least, and humans have been enjoying them for centuries.

這個貝類被預估至少有 3 億歲，而人類已經享用它們數個世紀。

Oyster cultivation was invented by Sergius Orata, a Roman engineer also often credited with the invention of underfloor heating.

生蠔養殖是由一位羅馬工程師 Sergius Orata 發明的，他也被不少人認為是地板供熱系統的發明者。

And since his invention, oyster farming has become big business.

自從有了他的發明之後，生蠔養殖成為成為一大事業。

While you may be seeing oysters on the menu more these days, their popularity now is nothing compared to just 200 years ago.

儘管現在你可能經常在菜單上看到生蠔，跟 200 年前相比，它們現在受歡迎的程度根本不值一提。

Oyster sales boomed from the early 19th century onwards, and the shellfish were sold as street food across London, Paris, and New York as they remained a cheap and accessible snack to many.

生蠔買賣從 19 世紀初開始蓬勃發展起來，而當時它還是便宜而且許多人都能輕鬆取得的街頭小吃，在倫敦、巴黎和紐約的街頭都有販賣。

In 1860, the small British seaside town of Whitstable alone was sending 50 million tons of oysters to London each year.

1860 年，光是英國的一座海濱小鎮 Whitstable ，每年都會運送 5000 萬噸的生蠔到倫敦。

And by 1900, New York was eating 1 million oysters every day.

而到了 1900 年，紐約每天會吃掉 100 萬顆生蠔。

But as their popularity grew, so did the problems.

然而當它的人氣持續上漲時，問題也開始浮現。

Industrialization and dredging of the waters in England led to over-fishing, and as more people moved to the coast, more and more sewage ended up dumped in oyster-growing waters.

英國的工業化和抽泥造成過度捕撈，而隨著越來越多人搬到海濱地區，更多污水被排入養殖生蠔的水域。

Soon, there were outbreaks of typhoid and other diseases, and many oyster beds had to be closed.

不久後，傷寒以及其他疾病相繼爆發，許多生蠔棚被迫關閉。

Hard winters and new diseases killed off many of the remaining native oysters and gave the shellfish a bad reputation that lasted for years to come.

寒冬和新疾病殺死了許多剩下的當地生蠔，並使得生蠔蒙上了壞名聲數年。

There's something else that kept the price of oysters down around the turn of the century : child labor.

約莫在世紀之交時，還有一件事使得生蠔的價格持續低迷：童工。

In the early 20th century, American photographer Lewis Hine captured photographs of many of the children working in the oyster industry, even photographing 4-year-old Mary, who had apparently shucked two pots of oysters each day.

在 20 世紀初，美國攝影師 Lewis Hine 拍下許多孩童在生蠔業工作的照片，當中甚至包括每天要剝兩盆生蠔殼、年僅 4 歲的 Mary。

Things had to change, though.

然而，情況需要改變。

We soon realized the importance of clean water in the oyster-growing process and outlawed child labor.

我們很快地意識到乾淨水質對生蠔栽培過程的重要性，因此開始禁止雇用童工。

Making oysters environmentally safe and ethical to grow came at a cost, as the shellfish take a lot of work to produce.

要使生蠔符合環境安全及道德地生長，需要付出代價，因為生產生蠔需要大量勞動力。

And now when oysters are raised, the environment they're grown in is one of the main considerations.

現在，當要飼養生蠔時，它們的成長環境是最主要的考量點之一。

Here, there's no industry. There's very little even farming here.

這裡沒有工業活動，甚至連養殖業都很少。

What you've got out in the loch is just everything that is natural in the loch, so they're feeding on the best possible feed that you could want, and there couldn't be an any more natural product.

在湖泊裡的東西，都是湖裡原本的物質，所以它們是以你能找到最好的飼料餵養的，沒有比這個更天然的食材了。

Each oyster takes two to three years to mature, and they start out microscopically small.

每個生蠔都需要兩到三年發育，它們剛開始只有用顯微鏡看才能看到的大小。

The tiny shellfish are grown in hatcheries.

這些迷你貝類會在養殖場長大。

When they're large enough, they're transplanted to their final growing place.

等它們夠大了，就會被轉移到最終的生長地。

Well, we get the oysters in from our hatchery when they're about your thumbnail size.

當生蠔有大拇指指甲大的時候，我們會把它們從我們的養殖場拿出來。

We will grow them in these baskets for approximately two to three years, and then we'll send them to the depuration center for depurating, and then for packing and for dispatch.

我們會讓它們在這些籃子裡長大個二到三年，然後我們會把它們送去淨化中心淨化，接著準備打包、運送。

At Loch Fyne, every oyster is depurated, a process that cleans the oysters and removes any dangerous bacteria.

在 Fyne 湖，所有生蠔都會被淨化，這個過程會將生蠔洗淨並去除掉所有有害的細菌。

Every single oyster must be checked by hand.

每一顆生蠔都必須用手檢查。

Making sure that each oyster is shipped live is paramount.

確保每顆生蠔都活著被運送是最重要的。

Believe it or not, we sell roughly about 35,000 oysters every week out here, and every single oyster is individually checked.

信不信由你，我們這裡每週賣出大概 3.5 萬顆生蠔，而每一顆都被個別檢查過。

So, what would we do is when we're packing the oysters, we'd pick up two oysters, and we would tap them together.

所以，當我們打包這些生蠔時要做的是，拿起兩顆生蠔，然後把它們互相敲一敲。

Now, you can obviously see that one's dead, but when you're packing thousands at a time, you wouldn't necessarily see it.

你可以很明顯地看出那個已經死了，但是當你同時在打包數千顆時，你不見得能看出來。

And sometimes it's only open just a little tiny bit, but when you tap that oyster, you can hear it almost straightaway.

有時候它只有打開一點點，但是當你敲這個生蠔，你幾乎可以馬上聽出來。

And that is the best way to tell if an oyster's gonna reach its shelf life, whether it should be discarded.

這是辨別一顆生蠔能夠達到它的保存期限或是應該被丟棄的最好方法。

Oysters may only have a nine-day shelf life, but that doesn't stop them being shipped all across the globe.

儘管生蠔只有九天的保存期限，但這並不妨礙牠們被運送到全球各地。

And their popularity and image as a luxury treat means that their demand is only going to rise.

而其作為奢華美食的人氣和形象代表著它們的需求只會日益增加。