The Essential Oyster: A Salty Appreciation of Taste and Temptation [Hardcover]

From Rowan Jacobsen, America's go-to expert, the author of the trailblazingA Geography of Oysters, comes the ultimate oyster guide--a gorgeous, full-color, must-have book.

A decade ago, Rowan Jacobsen wrote a book calledA Geography of Oystersthat 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 Oysteris 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 Oysterintroduces 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 Oysterwill help you find the best, and help you to cherish them better. That is what's captured--and celebrated--in these pages.

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 passiolã