The Essential Oyster

From Rowan Jacobsen, America's go-to expert, the author of the trailblazing A Geography of Oysters, comes the ultimate oyster guide--a gorgeous, full-color, must-have book. A decade ago, Rowan Jacobsen wrote a book called A Geography of Oysters that celebrated the romance of oysters, the primal rush of slurping a raw denizen of the sea, and the mysteries of molluscan terroir. The book struck a chord, and American oyster culture has been on a gravity-defying trajectory ever since. With lavish four-color photos throughout by renowned photographer David Malosh, The Essential Oyster is the definitive book for oyster-lovers everywhere, featuring stunning portraits, tasting notes, and backstories of all the top oysters, as well as recipes from America's top oyster chefs and a guide to the best oyster bars. Spotlighting more than a hundred of North America's greatest oysters--the unique, the historically significant, the flat-out yummiest--The Essential Oyster introduces the oyster culture and history of every region of North America, as well as overseas. There is no coastline from British Columbia to Baja, from New Iberia to New Brunswick, that isn't producing great oysters. For the most part, these are deeper cupped, stronger shelled, finer flavored, and more stylish than their predecessors. Some have colorful stories to tell. Some have quirks. All have character. The Essential Oyster will help you find the best, and help you to cherish them better. That is what's captured--and celebrated--in these pages.

A playful guide to identifying, serving, and enjoying one of America's most delicious foods describes the various types of oysters available in terms of appearance, origin, availability, and flavor and provides a host of tempting recipes, a color guide, lists of top oyster restaurants and festivals, tips on pairing wine and oysters, and more.

M. F. K. Fisher, whom John Updike has called our “poet of the appetites,” here pays tribute to that most enigmatic of ocean creatures, the oyster. As she tells of oysters found in stews, in soups, roasted, baked, fried, prepared à la Rockefeller or au naturel—and of the pearls sometimes found therein—Fisher describes her mother’s joy at encountering oyster loaf in a girls’ dorm in the 1890s, recalls her own initiation into the “strange cold succulence” of raw oysters as a young woman in Marseille and Dijon, and explores both the bivalve’s famed aphrodisiac properties and its equally notorious gut-wrenching powers. Plumbing the “dreadful but exciting” life of the oyster, Fisher invites readers to share in the comforts and delights that this delicate edible evokes, and enchants us along the way with her characteristically wise and witty prose. “Consider the Oyster marks M. F. K. Fisher’s emergence as a storyteller so confident that she can maneuver a reader through a narrative in which recipes enhance instead of interrupt the reader’s attention to the tales. She approaches a recipe as a published dream or wish, and the stories she tells here...are also stories of the pleasures and disillusionments of dreams fulfilled.”—PATRICIA STORACE, The New York Review of Books “Since Lewis Carroll no one had written charmingly about that indecisively sexed bivalve until Mrs. Fisher came along with her Consider the Oyster. Surely this will stand for some time as the most judicious treatment in English.”—CLIFFTON FADIMAN

For centuries, oysters have had the power to sustain and delight, inspiring writers and artists, lowly cooks and four-star chefs, laborers and gourmands, and everyone in between. A feast for the eyes and the palate oysters also are rich in history and lore. In Oysters: A Celebration in the Raw, Marion Lear Swaybill presents a wide-ranging visual exploration of this iconic shellfish, including stunning portraits of more than fifty oyster varietals, the latest photographs from some of the country’s most renowned and beautiful oyster farms, and notable illustrations of oysters in the arts and culture, all alongside a lively and informative text. Acclaimed chef and restaurateur Jeremy Sewall provides personal insights, drawing on his New England lineage and his stature in the forefront of the current oyster revival. Oysters: A Celebration in the Raw is true to its title from start to finish. Chapter One is a primer on all things oyster. Chapter Two introduces readers to legendary oystermen and women from around the country. Chapter Three offers exquisite photographs of more than fifty varieties of North American oysters, along with flavor profiles and ”merroir.” Oysters: A Celebration in the Raw concludes with highlights from the oyster timeline, depictions of oysters in art through the ages and stories of oysters as aphrodisiacs, and parses oyster myths and metaphors. The book also features an oyster glossary and resource list. It is the only book of its kind—a definitive visual companion to this iconic, much loved mollusk. Overflowing with gorgeous original photography and fascinating anecdotes, Oysters: A Celebration in the Raw is the perfect book for oyster aficionados and newbies, foodies and chefs of all stripes, lovers of photography and art, the environment, history, and the sea.

"Terroir" is French for taste of place. In this book, a James Beard Award-winning author explores many of the North American foods that depend on place for their unique flavor, including salmon from Alaska's Yukon River and honey from the tupelo-lined banks of the Apalachicola River.

A full color illustrated guide to growing and using herbs to enhance your health and your cooking. This beautifully illustrated, complete guide to herbs unlocks the secrets of these wonder plants—from planting and harvesting to cooking and storing—including their health benefits. Now you can discover the joy and pleasure of growing your own herbs—for spicing up meals, creating crafts, treating ailments, and more. In this comprehensive and beautifully illustrated herbal guide you’ll find information on their history, cultivation, propagation, and harvesting, along with a wealth of great ideas for using herbs everyday in a variety of ways. This guide unravels the mysteries of these versatile plants, with savvy tips and simple formulas for maximizing their powers. Did you know? · Mint can repel ants, flies, mice, and moths · Garlic can seriously lower cholesterol · Chives, fennel, tarragon, thyme, oregano, and winter savory are perennials · Rosemary was used in the Middle Ages for its tranquilizing effects, and it is still a digestion aid

Before New York City was the Big Apple, it could have been called the Big Oyster. Now award-winning author Mark Kurlansky tells the remarkable story of New York by following the trajectory of one of its most fascinating inhabitants–the oyster, whose influence on the great metropolis remains unparalleled. For centuries New York was famous for its oysters, which until the early 1900s played such a dominant a role in the city’s economy, gastronomy, and ecology that the abundant bivalves were Gotham’s most celebrated export, a staple food for the wealthy, the poor, and tourists alike, and the primary natural defense against pollution for the city’s congested waterways. Filled with cultural, historical, and culinary insight–along with historic recipes, maps, drawings, and photos–this dynamic narrative sweeps readers from the island hunting ground of the Lenape Indians to the death of the oyster beds and the rise of America’s environmentalist movement, from the oyster cellars of the rough-and-tumble Five Points slums to Manhattan’s Gilded Age dining chambers. Kurlansky brings characters vividly to life while recounting dramatic incidents that changed the course of New York history. Here are the stories behind Peter Stuyvesant’s peg leg and Robert Fulton’s “Folly”; the oyster merchant and pioneering African American leader Thomas Downing; the birth of the business lunch at Delmonico’s; early feminist Fanny Fern, one of the highest-paid newspaper writers in the city; even “Diamond” Jim Brady, who we discover was not the gourmand of popular legend. With The Big Oyster, Mark Kurlansky serves up history at its most engrossing, entertaining, and delicious.

Oysters are older than us, older than grass. They have been present at every turn of human history back to the Neolithic. They have inspired writers, painters and cooks, sustained whole communities, and fashioned legend and history. Their pearls funded empires and created slavery. The evidence oysters leave behind suggests there was a seafaring empire along the coast of Western Europe long before the Romans, and that the world was perhaps colonised not from west to east but from south to north. We were not cavemen at all, but men, exploring along the coastlines, because oysters were a sign of a safe and healthy marine economy.Oysters have played an intriguing part in the evolution of the world both as one of the healthiest foods we can eat and also with their perennial reputation as aphrodisiacs. Drew Smith takes us on a fascinating journey from the dawn of time right up to the present day, exposing the scandal of what has happened to the oyster in the showing how it has become a symbol for environmentalism in the UK and describing the hopes for aquaculture emanating from Japan and Korea.