A Geography of Oysters The Connoisseur's Guide to Oyster Eating in North America

by Jacobsen, Rowan

• ISBN13: 9781596913257
• ISBN10: 1596913258
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-09-04
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA

Summary

Passionate and playful, this is the first comprehensive guide to identifying, serving, and savoring one of America's original and most delicious foods. Considered one of the great sensual foods since the time of ancient Rome, eaten in the United States since its earliest human habitation, oysters are now seeing an American renaissance. Like wine and cheese, they owe much of their flavor toterroir, or the specific environment in which they growindeed, oysters are the food that tastes most like the sea. Today, there are at least two hundred unique oyster "appellations" in North America, each producing oysters with a distinct and consistent flavorsome merely passable, others dazzling. Beautifully written and illustrated,A Geography of Oystersis an indispensable guide to the oysters of America, describing each oyster's appearance, flavor, origin, and availability. Readers will learn how to shuck, how to pair wines and oysters, and how to navigate a raw bar with skill and panache. The book includes recipes, maps, black-and-white photos, and a color guide, as well as lists of top oyster restaurants, producers, and festivals. Painting a picture of the quirky characters who farm oysters and the gorgeous stretches of coast where these delicacies are found,A Geography of Oystersis both terrific reading and the guide that foodies of all types have been waiting for.

Author Biography

Rowan Jacobsen is the managing editor of The Art of Eating and a frequent contributor to the magazine, for which he has written on subjects including wasabi, umami, lobsters, and mead. He is also the author of Chocolate Unwrapped. He grew up eating oysters in the steamy backwaters of rural Florida and now lives in the hills of Vermont with his wife and son.

Table of Contents

How to Use This Book	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Mastering Oysters	p. 9
A Dozen Oysters You Should Know	p. 11
The Five Species	p. 15
How to Grow an Oyster	p. 27
The Taste of an Oyster: A Primer	p. 45
Sustainability and the Environment: The Case for Oyster Aquaculture	p. 55
What Kind of Oyster Eater Are You?	p. 65
The Aphrodisiac Angle	p. 70
The Oyster Appellations of North America	p. 73
Navigating the World of Oyster Names	p. 75
Maritime Provinces	p. 79
Maine	p. 95
Massachusetts and Rhode Island	p. 105
New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut	p. 119
Chesapeake	p. 136
Gulf Coast	p. 150
California and Oregon	p. 157
Washington State	p. 165
British Columbia and Alaska	p. 198
International Waters	p. 207
Everything You Wanted to Know About Oysters But Were Afraid to Ask	p. 211
Shipping, Selecting, Storing, Shucking, Serving, and Savoring Your Oysters	p. 213
Oyster Wines and Other Libations	p. 228
Recipes	p. 235
Safety	p. 255
Nutrition	p. 261
The Best Oyster Bars and Oyster Festivals	p. 265
Growers Who Ship Direct	p. 278
Acknowledgments	p. 283
Oyster Index	p. 285
Recipe Index	p. 287
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.