The Big Oyster, Mark Kurlansky
The Big Oyster, Mark Kurlansky
2 Rating(s)
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The Big Oyster
History on the Half Shell

Author: Mark Kurlansky

Narrator: John H. Mayer

Unabridged: 9 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/28/2006


Synopsis

Before New York City was the Big Apple, it could have been called the Big Oyster. Now award-winning author Mark Kurlansky tells the remarkable story of New York by following the trajectory of one of its most fascinating inhabitants–the oyster, whose influence on the great metropolis remains unparalleled.

For centuries New York was famous for its oysters, which until the early 1900s played such a dominant a role in the city’s economy, gastronomy, and ecology that the abundant bivalves were Gotham’s most celebrated export, a staple food for the wealthy, the poor, and tourists alike, and the primary natural defense against pollution for the city’s congested waterways.

Filled with cultural, historical, and culinary insight–along with historic recipes, maps, drawings, and photos–this dynamic narrative sweeps readers from the island hunting ground of the Lenape Indians to the death of the oyster beds and the rise of America’s environmentalist movement, from the oyster cellars of the rough-and-tumble Five Points slums to Manhattan’s Gilded Age dining chambers.

Kurlansky brings characters vividly to life while recounting dramatic incidents that changed the course of New York history. Here are the stories behind Peter Stuyvesant’s peg leg and Robert Fulton’s “Folly”; the oyster merchant and pioneering African American leader Thomas Downing; the birth of the business lunch at Delmonico’s; early feminist Fanny Fern, one of the highest-paid newspaper writers in the city; even “Diamond” Jim Brady, who we discover was not the gourmand of popular legend.

With The Big Oyster, Mark Kurlansky serves up history at its most engrossing, entertaining, and delicious.

About The Author

Mark Kurlansky is the New York Times bestselling author of many books, including The Food of a Younger LandCod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World; Salt: A World History1968: The Year That Rocked the World; The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell; and Paper: Paging Through History. He lives in New York City.John H. Mayer is a character actor whose voice has been heard on numerous commercials, animated programs, audio books and narrations including E! Entertainment’s Celebrity Profiles. John was a five-year member of the Groundlings comedy theater company in Los Angeles. Recent BOT recordings include Cesar Millan’s How to Raise the Perfect DogBe a Pack Leader, and Cesar’s WayA Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horwitz, and American Lightening by Howard Blum.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Claire on April 03, 2020

I’m a big old History nerd, and I loved that this book was as much about the History of New York, as it was about oysters. Kuslansky, as usual hits a pretty great balance between basic Science, and Cultural History in this story, about the luxury shellfish of the modern world (which I have never eat......more

Goodreads review by Eli - on January 26, 2022

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

Goodreads review by Liesl on January 14, 2010

I started this book completely fascinated, and really did learn a great deal about oysters and the history of New York. Lots of great trivia and fascinating bits that I'm glad to know and that help other bits fall into place in my mind. But about halfway through, the book just starts to discintegrat......more

Goodreads review by Diana on April 25, 2023

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 Ne......more

Goodreads review by anahissa on August 02, 2022

I can’t stress enough how important this book is to me or how necessary it is for anyone who appreciates oysters, cares about wildlife and the environment, or lives in New York to read. There is so much to the history of NY that this book wasn’t able to touch, but also so much that it did, more than......more


Quotes

Advance praise for The Big Oyster

“In his portrait of the once-famous oyster beds of New York Harbor, Kurlansky beautifully illustrates food’s ability to connect us deeply to our particular place in the world, and shows how our nourishment is so vitally tied to the health of the natural world.”
–Alice Waters

“Mark Kurlansky has done it again. The Big Oyster is a zesty love song to a bivalve and a city–intelligent, informative, and impossible to put down.”
–Nathaniel Philbrick, National Book Award—winning author of In the Heart of the Sea


Praise for Mark Kurlansky

1968: The Year That Rocked the World

“Memorable, essential, and in its own way wondrous.”
–The Boston Globe


Salt: A World History

“Bright writing and, most gratifyingly, an enveloping narrative.”
–San Francisco Chronicle

Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World

“This eminently readable book is a new tool for scanning world history.”
–The New York Times Book Review