What one food represents a city or geographical area? According to Mark Kurlansky, the oyster should represent the city of New York. In the colonial days, oysters proliferated, and provided one of the earliest and most profitable industries in the city as it went from Dutch to English rule. THE BIG OYSTER traces the dual history of a growing city and a bivalve, which fed that city, from its poorest to its richest. For a book that is devoted to a particular foodstuff, this goes out of its way to turn readers against the subject of the book. We are told again and again that the still-beating heart of the oyster reminds us that we are eating a living creature. I prefer to live in blissful ignorance. We are told that the oyster filters waste and sewage from the waters in which it lives. Again, not a pretty picture. The final chapter about industrial pollution is rather a bring-down. When Kurlansky sticks to history (and he does skip around the timeline a bit), this is engaging. However, after reading this, I doubt that I will knowingly kill an oyster for some time. I can retain my indifference to cows and chickens, but an oyster seems so helpless and unassuming. PS. I used to love eating oysters.

I didn't know that NYC was at one time The Big Oyster instead of the Big Apple. The Hudson River estuary had an abundance of oysters, so much so that it was a leader in oyster production, exporting them around the world. This book weaves the history of the NYC metropolitan area and oysters. Unfortunately, many oysters have disappeared or became contaminated so NY is no longer associated with this mollusk. I found the book interesting and readable and hope to read other books by the author in the new future.

This book was smaller in scope than previous books by this author that I have read. The writing style is very similar, though, and highlights an almost absurd idea from the past, that New York City was THE place to harvest oysters. The book follows the story from before the arrival of Europeans to modern day, highlighting the way that the increase in population density took one of the world's most vital estuaries and ruined it with a tremendous amount of waste. Along the way, we learn about the creation of canals, the first restaurants in New York City, the different varieties (and even species) of Oysters around the world, and the way they interact with their habitat. It was an enjoyable journey rather like previous books by the author, whose work I have always enjoyed.

Since this promised to cover the history of one of my favorite cities through the cultivation of one of my favorite foods, I was intrigued. Started out well, but I felt the author may have been scrambling for material in order to fill out the pages. Still, it was fun reading up to a (blue) point.

The Big Oyster: A Molluscular History of New York [2006] – ★★★★★

Kurlansky’s book is an engaging, quirky historical account of one of the most famous cities in the world told through the story of once one of the most misunderstood salt-water mollusc.

“The history of New York oysters is a history of New York itself – its wealth, its strength, its excitement, its greed, its thoughtlessness, its destructiveness, its blindness and – as any New Yorker will tell you – its filth. This is the history of the trashing of New York, the killing of its great estuary” [2006: xvi], so begins this marvellous non-fiction book by Mark Kurlansky, who is also the author of such popular books as Cod [1997] and Salt [2002]. The Big Oyster tells the story of the city of New York through the prism of once one of its most famous and prized commodities – its unparalleled oysters. Currently, New York is known for its skyscrapers, its shopping and its business (among other things), but for a long time in history when you thought of New York, you first thought of its delicious and plentiful oysters [2006: xvii]. There was, indeed, a time when New York was known for its “sweet air”, enviable water and tidal systems, and its marine produce, especially its oysters. Through engaging historical accounts, literary anecdotes, culinary recipes and some of the most famous New Yorkers, Kurlansky tells a story of New York like you have never read or known it before and one we should never forget, especially in today’s ever-rising environmental and climate change concerns.

Mark Kurlansky starts his account with the year 1609, when “Henry Hudson, a British explorer employed by the Dutch, sailed into New York Harbour….” [Kurlansky, 2006: 4]. The area surrounding present-day New York was a different world back then: settled by native Lenapes, who also consumed oysters, and abundant in natural beauty and resources. Kurlansky paints New York as viewed by the first Dutch settlers (it was called New Amsterdam) and talks about the harvesting of oysters by the native population and the Dutch. The author then talks about the increasing “commercialisation” of oysters in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries when New York was already British. At that point New York was slowly turning into “the leading American city for oyster and alcohol consumption” [2006: 65]. The book talks of the many taverns in the city that opened to sell their cheap and unparalleled oysters, as well as details the state of oysters during the American Revolution, and how increased travel and technological developments, such as the invention of steamboats and railroads, affected New York’s oysters.

One of the great things about Kurlansky’s book is that it is never a dry historical account. He talks about the nature and unique characteristics of oysters, whose predecessors emerged in the Cambrian period 520 million years ago, and demonstrates the various uses of oysters through changing culinary traditions. There are many recipes in the book, and, as we read the mouth-watering descriptions, there is also much “linguistic” trivia to be found and we can discover how some of the most famous streets in New York got their names. Washington Irving, Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe all had their say on the ways of Manhattan, and on the nature and popularity of oysters; the inclusion of their illuminating accounts is also what makes The Big Oyster such a great book.

“The combination of having reputably the best oysters in the world in what had become unarguably the greatest port in the world made New York City for an entire century the world’s oyster capital” [Kurlansky, 2006: 113].

There is definitely much in the book about the economic or business side of oysters production, and it is interesting to get to know that once oysters were the very synonym of poverty (they were so cheap!). Then rolls the year 1830, and people started thinking about recreating oysters because they had disappeared from some New York areas due to the increased industrialisation. Kurlansky is right to point out that “little is learned about a species until it is faced with extinction” [2006: 114]. Oysters became better known at that point and the commercial battles for them have started. They became overharvested because they were also shipped in very large quantities abroad. The book’s final pages are dedicated to the topic of the eradication of oysters from their natural habitats around New York City because of many factors, including the rapidly growing population that meant the growth of unhealthy slums, uncontrolled and inconsiderate garbage dumping (including sewage problems), and the demand for good-quality oysters that could hardly be met (let alone the link of oysters to dangerous diseases because of the increasingly polluted waters). The increased industrialisation of the 1870s meant the slow disappearance of a species that called New York City its home for such a long time.

I love a good microhistory and Mike Kurlansky has really perfected the form. As a native New Yorker, I had no idea how integral the oyster was to the birth and growth of the city and was amazed to hear about all the details.

Though, as often happens when learning about the natural wonder that WAS New York, it was a sad tale for the oysters and what was once a garden of eden has been turned into oxygen depleated, heavy metal filled waterways. Granted things are much better than they were in the 70s, and the billion oyster project is having success, theres a sadness to knowing that it my never be possible to eat a NY oyster again. Nevertheless, a great read that I'd recommend to anyone interested in food or the history of NY.

Audiobook.

I normally really enjoy books like this, with a focal point on certain place or item, but including information about a myriad of other things. I especially enjoyed Kurlansky's book "Salt" so I thought this would be a no brainer. While I did learn some fascinating facts about oysters and New York, I found the book quite dull and I couldn't wait till it was over. I'm not sure what was lacking.

Very thorough history of the rise and fall of the oyster industry in New York.

I had always thought of New York harbor as having always been polluted.

Cool early culinary history of NYC and oysters in particular. I’d be interested in how some of these proletarian foods like lobster or classless foods like oysters (and good lord fish and chips in the UK is sometimes seemingly so expensive for what they are) become upscale. This book alludes to it being supply and demand as oysters became so much less common due to pollution and overfishing but I bet there are more factors at play.

I think this ended up on my "to read" list because it has a "New York State" connection. Although it is sort of focused on the history of oysters in NY State, almost everything related to NY State is specifically "the city", Manhattan and all other boroughs, including Staten Island. Since I am most interested in rural NY State information and history, I didn't learn a lot that interested me from this book.

If you are someone who has a "thing" for food, or more specifically oysters, there's a whole lot of historical detail related to their size, popularity, import and export practices and more in this book. For me, I learned much more about oysters than I will ever need to know. I can at least say it wasn't boring, which is the biggest flaw I tend to find with some non-fiction books.

An inherent problem with being a historian reading popular history is that there is a bunch of exposition in most popular histories that I already know, and so I often find that popular American history can drag a bit. While that was sometimes true of The Big Oyster, it was very easy to skim those sections and Kulansky's writing style and use of language are so entertaining that I did not really mind. I had no idea there was so much to say about a food that has always struck me as salty snot on a half shell or a bit of brine, deep fried. I was fascinated by how central oysters were to New York identity. It was also deeply depressing to read about their fall to pollution (though not really a surprise that the New York Harbour is vile) and to know that because of heavy metals, there is little to do about it.