Camden Lifestyle Magazine Issue 01

HE LED AND SHE FOLLOWED
“I would cry every night, I was up to my elbows every day in mullet, covered in fish stink and he was
getting to be out on the beautiful river”
“Back then they paid 10 cents an oyster and he would come home
so excited that he found 10-12 of them. I recently found his old
payout receipts, $1.20 his first week.” She shares with me how
they started the fish market together and how scared she was not
knowing what any of the fish were, wish ones you could eat, and
how she didn’t know that blue crabs could bite. He would be out
of the river and she was stuck selling at the fish market, selling
creatures from the ocean that she didn’t even know if you could
eat or not. “I would cry every night, I was up to my elbows every
day in mullet, covered in fish stink and he was getting to be out
on the river, but I had help, I was learning from Kath and Bruce,
the ones we purchased the market from. Every day I would walk
back to her house on the property 15-20 times a day and show
her a fish and she would tell me its name and what it was good
for. When the knocking became lesser and lesser, she knew I was
learning the ways.” Kathy wasn’t the only one who taught Karen
the girl from up North who had never been on the waters before;
her customers taught her everything she says with affection in her
voice.“They taught me how to butterfly shrimp and they taught
me how to filet a fish. I had the menu of what we had in stock and
they would point to what they wanted since I couldn’t match the
names of the fish to what they looked like. My customers would
come in to buy something and then sit down and tell me how
they prepared and cooked it. Honestly, I have the best customers,
they are the reason I know all that I do.” In 2011 Karen and her
husband were ready to build on the land they had invested their
savings in, but the city permits were very hard to get approved.
“They didn’t want a fish market here, they wanted a gas station or
other business but we appealed and finally we built.” Karen and
her husband not only built the seafood market we enjoy today but
started the Crooked River Oyster culture, harvesting local oysters
and building oyster beds. They were able to purchsae one of the
rare leases for Crooked River and worked with the University on
creating Oyster farms and expanding the culture. If you walk into
WhiteHouse, Karen is going to tell you about how special the locally
picked oysters are and if you have never eaten a raw oyster,
she is going to teach you the right way to eat one, a way that will
make you appreciate the oyster and river it came from. It’s the
closest you can get to drinking the ocean. Now carrying on the
legacy of working the river Karen’s two sons work side by side
with her picking the oysters and running the market.
Visit the market at Harrietts Bluff Rd, Woodbine, GA 31569