The Essential Oyster: A Salty Appreciation of Taste and Temptation

"A dazzling book about the best bivalves of our time." --Wall Street Journal                                   "This verbally and visually succulent book covers 99 types of oysters, most from the shores of North America... The author's appreciation of even the least prepossessing of these bivalves is infectious. Jacobsen makes the case that 'every oyster is a tide pool in miniature, a poem built of salt water and phytoplankton that nods to whatever motes of meaning shaped it.' East Beach Blondes, farmed in Rhode Island, taste like 'brine and ozone; a boardwalk in the rain'; Maine's wild-harvested Belons remind him of 'hazelnuts and anchovies fried in seal fat, with a squishy crunch like jellyfish salad.' In terms of presence, New Brunswick's Beausoleils are 'as clean and inoffensive as a Jehovah's Witness," and wild James River specimens have "oversized muscles and a pale potbelly, like an aging professional wrestler.' Jacobsen may leave noncoastal readers drooling with jealousy, but vicarious oyster slurping is better than none." --Kirkus Reviews

"An in-depth guide that is also a highly enjoyable read...Humorous, crafty, and deeply informative." --Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

"A remarkable, essential addition to any food collection." --Booklist (starred review)

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.

Rowan Jacobsen's first book on oysters, A Geography of Oysters, won the James Beard Award in 2008 and helped trigger the oyster mania we now find ourselves in. He is the author of Apples of Uncommon Character, Fruitless Fall, The Living Shore, and American Terroir. He has written for the New York Times, Harper's, Outside, Mother Jones, and others. He maintains the world's two leading web sources on oysters: Oysterguide.com (for his opinions) and OysteRater.com (for everybody else's).