2.) The Essential Oyster: A Salty Appreciation of Taste and Temptation by Rowan Jacobsen
This follow-up to Rowan Jacobsen’s “A Geography of Oysters,” this book is a must-have for oyster lovers. It features photos from photographer David Malosh, and relays the histories and tasting notes of North America’s top oysters. Moreover, the book comes with recipes for each oyster type from top chefs and a guide to the best oyster bars.
According to the book’s description: “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.”
A new addition to Amazon’s marketplace, having been released on 4 October, 2016, this book packs up-to-date information and techniques, and is already a bestseller in the website’s “Fish and Seafood” category.
Review:
"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)
