THE BIG OYSTER - NEW YORK IN THE WORLD - A MOLLUSCULAR HISTORY - MARK KURLANSKY

307 PAGE SOFTCOVER BOOK IN GOOD CONDITION. 

Part treatise, part miscellany, unfailingly entertaining.
The New York Times

A small pearl of a book . . . a great tale of the growth of a modern city as seen through the rise and fall of the lowly oyster.
Rocky Mountain News

Award-winning author Mark Kurlansky tells the remarkable story of New York by following the trajectory of one of its most fascinating inhabitantsthe oyster.
For centuries New York was famous for this particular shellfish, which until the early 1900s played such a dominant a role in the citys life that the abundant bivalves were Gothams most celebrated export, a staple food for all classes, and a natural filtration system for the citys congested waterways.

Filled with cultural, historical, and culinary insightalong with historic recipes, maps, drawings, and photosthis dynamic narrative sweeps readers from the seventeenth-century founding of New York to the death of its oyster beds and the rise of Americas environmentalist movement, from the oyster cellars of the rough-and-tumble Five Points slums to Manhattans Gilded Age dining chambers. With The Big Oyster, Mark Kurlansky serves up history at its most engrossing, entertaining, and delicious."

oysters / seafood / new york