Rowan Jacobsen

Harvard Book Store welcomes oyster expert and food writer ROWAN JACOBSEN, author of Apples of Uncommon Character and A Geography of Oysters, for a discussion of his latest book, The Essential Oyster: A Salty Appreciation of Taste and Temptation.

About The Essential Oyster

A decade ago, Rowan Jacobsen wrote a book called A Geography of Oysters that 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 on a gravity-defying trajectory ever since.

With lavish four-color photos throughout by renowned photographer David Malosh, The Essential Oyster is the definitive book for oyster-lovers everywhere, featuring stunning portraits, tasting notes, and 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 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. There is no coastline from British Columbia 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.

Praise

"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

"A gastronomic inventory of America's oysters, meticulously distinguishing among the dozens of varieties that diners encounter . . . Jacobsen manages to illustrate the unique appearance, occurrence, shapes, colors, scents, and flavors of oysters hailing from each separate reef bordering American shores. He realizes all this through his exceptional command of language and his ability to resonate with the human passions of the oystermen he meets on his journeys from the Gulf of Maine to the Gulf of Mexico to Puget Sound. A remarkable, essential addition to any food collection." —Booklist, starred review