Essential Oyster

A decade ago, Rowan Jacobsen’s A Geography of Oysters 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 sizzling ever since. With lavish photographs by renowned photographer David Malosh, The Essential Oyster is the definitive book for today’s oyster lover, featuring stunning portraits, irreverent tasting notes, and delightful 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 the world’s most interesting 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 BC 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.