The Oyster Question
The Oyster Question

Author: Christine Keiner

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 0820337188

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In The Oyster Question, Christine Keiner applies perspectives of environmental, agricultural, political, and social history to examine the decline of Maryland’s iconic Chesapeake Bay oyster industry. Oystermen have held on to traditional ways of life, and some continue to use preindustrial methods, tonging oysters by hand from small boats. Others use more intensive tools, and thus it is commonly believed that a lack of regulation enabled oystermen to exploit the bay to the point of ruin. But Keiner offers an opposing view in which state officials, scientists, and oystermen created a regulated commons that sustained tidewater communities for decades. Not until the 1980s did a confluence of natural and unnatural disasters weaken the bay’s resilience enough to endanger the oyster resource. Keiner examines conflicts that pitted scientists in favor of privatization against watermen who used their power in the statehouse to stave off the forces of rural change. Her study breaks new ground regarding the evolution of environmental politics at the state rather than the federal level. The Oyster Question concludes with the impassioned ongoing debate over introducing nonnative oysters to the Chesapeake Bay and how that proposal might affect the struggling watermen and their identity as the last hunter-gatherers of the industrialized world.

The Big Oyster
The Big Oyster

Author: Mark Kurlansky

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2007-01-09

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1588365913

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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.

A Geography of Oysters
A Geography of Oysters

Author: Rowan Jacobsen

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2008-09-16

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 159691548X

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A playful guide to identifying, serving, and enjoying one of America's most delicious foods describes the various types of oysters available in terms of appearance, origin, availability, and flavor and provides a host of tempting recipes, a color guide, lists of top oyster restaurants and festivals, tips on pairing wine and oysters, and more.

Shucked
Shucked

Author: Erin Byers Murray

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2011-10-11

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 1429989092

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Bill Buford's Heat meets Phoebe Damrosch's Service Included in this unique blend of personal narrative, food miscellany, and history In March of 2009, Erin Byers Murray ditched her pampered city girl lifestyle and convinced the rowdy and mostly male crew at Island Creek Oysters in Duxbury, Massachusetts, to let a completely unprepared, aquaculture-illiterate food and lifestyle writer work for them for a year to learn the business of oysters. The result is Shucked—part love letter, part memoir and part documentary about the world's most beloved bivalves. Providing an in-depth look at the work that goes into getting oysters from farm to table, Shucked shows Erin's fullcircle journey through the modern day oyster farming process and tells a dynamic story about the people who grow our food, and the cutting-edge community of weathered New England oyster farmers who are defying convention and looking ahead. The narrative also interweaves Erin's personal story—the tale of how a technology-obsessed workaholic learns to slow life down a little bit and starts to enjoy getting her hands dirty (and cold). This is a book for oyster lovers everywhere, but also a great read for locavores and foodies in general.

A High Low Tide
A High Low Tide

Author: André Joseph Gallant

Publisher:

Published: 2020-03-10

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780820357836

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Oysters are a narrative food: in each shuck and slurp, an eater tastes the place where the animal was raised. But that's just the beginning. André Joseph Gallant uses the bivalve as a jumping off point to tell the story of a changing southeastern coast, the bounty within its waters, and what the future may hold for the area and its fishers. With A High Low Tide he places Georgia, as well as the South, in the national conversation about aquaculture, addressing its potential as well as its challenges. The Georgia oyster industry dominated in the field of oysters for canning until it was slowed by environmental and economic shifts. To build it back and to make the Georgia oyster competitive on the national stage, a bit of scientific cosmetic work must be done, performed through aquaculture. The business of oyster farming combines physical labor and science, creating an atmosphere where disparate groups must work together to ensure its future. Employing months of field research in coastal waters and countless hours interviewing scholars and fishermen, Gallant documents both the hiccups and the successes that occur when university researchers work alongside blue-collar laborers on a shared obsession. The dawn of aquaculture in Georgia promises a sea change in the livelihoods of wild-harvest shellfishermen, should they choose to adapt to new methods. Gallant documents how these traditional harvesters are affected by innovation and uncertain tides and asks how threatened they really are.

Nonnative Oysters in the Chesapeake Bay
Nonnative Oysters in the Chesapeake Bay

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2004-02-09

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0309167027

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Nonnative Oysters in the Chesapeake Bay discusses the proposed plan to offset the dramatic decline in the bay's native oysters by introducing disease-resistant reproductive Suminoe oysters from Asia. It suggests this move should be delayed until more is known about the environmental risks, even though carefully regulated cultivation of sterile Asian oysters in contained areas could help the local industry and researchers. It is also noted that even though these oysters eat the excess algae caused by pollution, it could take decades before there are enough of them to improve water quality.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast Seafood Industry
The Mississippi Gulf Coast Seafood Industry

Author: Deanne Love Stephens

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2021-06-04

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 1496833589

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The seafood industry on the coast of Mississippi has attracted waves of immigrants and other workers—oftentimes folks who were either already acquainted with maritime livelihoods or those who quickly adapted to the resources of the region. For generations the industry has provided employment and sustenance to Coast peoples. Deanne Love Stephens tells their stories and identifies key populations who have worked this harvest. Oyster and shrimp processing were the most significant of these trades, and much of the Gulf Coast's history follows these two delicacies. Harvesting, processing, and marketing oyster and shrimp products built the Mississippi seafood industry and powered the growth of the entire coastal region. This book is the first to offer a broad view of the many ethnic groups and distinct populations who toiled in the oyster and shrimp industries. Relying heavily upon contemporary newspapers, oral histories, and interviews to create a rich picture of the industry and its workers, the author presents the history of laboring people who daily toiled in factories and often went unheard and unrecognized. Stephens provides an overview of significant early developments and the beginnings of the industry, considering the development of railroad expansion, lighthouse construction, and ice technology. She covers significant state and federal legislation that both defined and protected marine resources, illustrating the depth of the industry’s importance as Mississippians wrestled with adequate protective measures to preserve oyster and shrimp resources throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.