Product Description

When Peter Minuit bought Manhattan for $24 in 1626, he showed his shrewdness by also buying the oyster beds off tiny, nearby Oyster Island, renamed Ellis Island in 1770. From the Minuit purchase until pollution finally destroyed the beds in the 1920s, New York was a city known for its oysters, especially in the late 1800s, when Europe and America enjoyed a decades-long oyster craze. In a dubious endorsement, William Makepeace Thackeray said that eating a New York oyster was like eating a baby. Travellers to New York were also keen to experience the famous New York oyster houses. While some were known for their elegance, due to a longstanding belief in the aphrodisiac quality of oysters, they were often associated with prostitution. In 1842, when the novelist Charles Dickens arrived in New York, he could not conceal his eagerness to find and experience the fabled oyster cellars of New York City's slums. "The Big Oyster" is the story of a city and of an international trade. Filled with cultural, social and culinary insight - as well as recipes, maps, drawings and photographs - this is history at its most engrossing, entertaining and delicious.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #102099 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Independent
`compelling read...a book full of surprises'

Sunday Times
'Fascinating book'

The Herald
`Kurlansky's hard-hitting story of New York's relationship with
the oyster is simply a joy...never pedantic and always absorbing'

Customer Reviews

An unexpected surprise!
This really is a far more fascinating book than it sounds. I bought it from my local Oxfam (sorry Amazon!) after being attracted by the cover (I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I'm such a sucker). I wasn't too sure that a history of oysters could really be that involving, but I was so wrong. The book is not only a fascinating insight into the ups and downs of oysters over the past few hundred years (and their sad, inevitable decline once humans started to target them(, it also doubles as a unique view of the history of New York. I was genuinely disappointed when I finished the book - so much so that I bought almost every other book by Mark Kurlansky, all of which have been just riveting. Strongly recommended!

Big Oysters in the Big Apple
With a pending trip to New York and an already well fed interest in the City, I stumbled across this book and thought it would be the perfect companion for the journey across, but alas I slept and it had to wait until the return journey.
although there are not many who would purchase a book on the life and times of oysters over the past couple of hundred years, when you combine their history with that of the founding and growth of New York city, then you have a great read full of interesting facts and snippets about both city and oyster, so much so that the reader finishes the book looking down upon anyone who would consider to eat a live oyster with its "beating heart", something which is compared in Kurlanskys book as "eating a live baby".
Although not as informative and gripping as Russell Shorto's 'Island at the Centre of the World', this book is well worth the read.
My only reason for dropping a star from the rating is that there were numerous occasions throughout the book where Kurlansky repeated a fact which had been previously covered.
I'm off to rescue an oyster from the fish counter in the local supermarket and keep it healthy for the next dozen years!