The Big Oyster : history on the half shell / Mark Kurlansky.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kurlansky, Mark.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cooking (Oysters).

Oysters--New York (State)--New York.

Oysters.

New York (State)--New York.

Physical Description:

xx, 307 pages : illustrations, maps ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Ballantine Books, [2006]

Summary:

Before New York City was the Big Apple, it could have been called the Big Oyster. Author Kurlansky tells the remarkable story of the oyster, whose influence on the great metropolis remains unparalleled. For centuries New York was famous for its oysters, 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, from the island hunting ground of the Lenape Indians to the death of the oyster beds and the rise of America's environmentalist movement, 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; and even "Diamond" Jim Brady.--From publisher description.

Contents:

A molluscular life

The bivalvent Dung Hill

The fecundity of bivalvency

A nice bed to visit

Becoming the world's oyster

Eggocentric New Yorkers

The crassostreasness of New Yorkers

Making your own bed

Ostreamaniacal behavior

Ostracized in the golden age

Enduring shellfishness.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [283]-294) and index.

ISBN:

0345476387

OCLC:

60550567

Publisher Number:

9780345476388 (hardcover) 52395