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 to terroir, or the specific environment in which they grow--indeed, 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 flavor--some merely passable, others dazzling.
Beautifully written and illustrated, A Geography of Oysters is 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 Oysters is both terrific reading and the guide that foodies of all types have been waiting for.
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“A wide-ranging, thorough, breezily written guide to oysters as cuisine…Jacobsen leads with his fearless palate every time- he’s a down-to-earth companion you listen to, even if you don’t always agree with him.”-Boston Globe
“The most remarkable single-subject books to come along in a while…Jacobsen covers oysters in exhaustive detail, but with writing so engaging and sprightly that reading about the briny darlings is almost as compulsive as eating them…this book will improve your oyster eating immeasurably…There may be no more pleasurable food than a raw oyster, there almost certainly is no better guide.”—Los Angeles Times, Russ Parsons
"the ultimate macropedia for oysters"—Publisher's Weekly, starred review
I write about food, the environment, and the connections between the two. Ultimately, my subject is how we interact with myriad other lifeforms to sustain our existence, and what that process can tell us about ourselves and our world. Understanding that makes everything we do a little more meaningful, fun--and delicious! Learn more at www.rowanjacobsen.com.
I love oysters. I don't know why, but I just do. Every now and then I get strong cravings and I just have to have them. I also have a lot of books about oysters because of it. "Consider the oyster" a great book, and others. But they are all mainly cook books with very little detail about the oyster, where it comes from and it's history.
This book is incredibly well written, witty at times and very informative. You can learn how oysters are farmed and their various techniques. Things I didn't even find on wiki. I learned how they get to harden those shells. I purchased some Carlsbad Blondes, and those shells would just snap in half. Terrible oysters. I know why because of the book.
I'm not sure how the author did it, but it seems he has had the incredible opportunity to sample a great many oysters. I can see his tax return $1000 spent as "research" for his book. What a great way to do research. Upon one of the authors great descriptions, I ordered three dozen Hama Hama's. They were fantastic.
The author picks five or six farms and gives incredible detail about the location, the owner/farmer and his/her history and the oysters themselves. This is a book to own now, because it is relavent now with the current oyster farmers listed. It is a chance to learn about the worlds best and to learn how to sample them.
The only thing I would have loved to see in the book, would be a travel guide on how to visit the various farms the author so nicely listed. That's one of the things I plan on doing is to travel up and down the coast visiting oysters farms along the way. I would have loved this book to have a guide like that.
There is a section on "what kind of oyster" person are you? But I didn't find that very useful or informative. A very minor drawback for an incredibly informative book on oysters. Every connosieur(sp?) should have a copy. A book for oyster lovers by an oyster lover.
This book was one I bought as a potential reference book, however once i picked it up I just kept reading it. This is far from a dry review of oysters it is funny and insightful. My oyster vocabulary has blossomed.
Three friends have requested that I stop talking about oysters and buy them a copy for their birthdays.
It tells about the oysters and then how to get them delivered to your door for dinner. I love this book.
Jacobsen has turned the art of eating oysters to a higher level.
You can't wait to finish the book so you can start trying out his great recommendations. Whether you're an oyster novice, blindly feeling your way around the oysters beds, or, a seasoned connoisseur, this book is a must read. Great work Rowan!!
