TITLE: The Big Oyster
AUTHOR: Mark Kurlansky
PUBLISHER: Random House ( May 2006)
ISBN:0 224 078232 PRICE: $35.00 (hardback) 307 pages
Reviewed by Ann Skea (ann@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
).
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"Up until the nineteenth century the oyster was thought to be a simple
primitive creature".
So begins one early chapter of this book by Mark Kurlansky. And, if you
enjoy
oysters as a culinary delicacy, you would do well to stop reading right
there
and skip to the next chapter, because what follows is a detailed
description of
a complex, sensitive creature which we keep alive so that, complete with
"a
working brain, a stomach, intestines, liver and a still beating heart", we
can
swallow it whole. And some of them can grow to a foot long, which, as
William
Makepeace Thackeray once complained was "like eating a baby".
In spite of all this, the shell middens left by our ancestors since the
earliest times show that oysters have been an im****tant part of the human
diet
for centuries. In fact, as Mark Kurlansky convincingly demonstrates, we
can
even trace the history of a city like New York by examining the parallel
history of the oysters in the waters which surround it. Hence his subtitle
for
this book: New York in the World, A Molluscular History.
The Big Oyster tells you everything you ever wanted to know about oysters,
and,
in its litany of dates, weights, and farming techniques, rather more than
is
perhaps necessary or desirable. The focus of the book is obviously
America,
with occasional excursions into other lands, so I read with a constant
question
in my mind: "To what family does the oyster I have frequently enjoyed (but
may
no longer be able to stomach) belong?" i.e. the Sydney Rock Oyster. The
answer
is that it is unique to Australasia. This revelation came late in the
book, by
which time I had learned lots of fascinating facts, many of which I'm not
sure
I really wanted to know.
I learned, for example, that oysters are extraordinarily efficient
sanitary
workers, filtering out those deadly cholera and typhoid bacteria, as well
as
heavy metals, DDT etc, so well that they can be used to measure the
pollution
of our waterways. I learned that oysters are amazingly fecund. That in
spite of
the fact that both species look identical, they seem to know what to do
and it
takes only a few minutes for them to release enough sperm and eggs to
produce
billions of swimming larvae. I now know, too, that the pearl oyster is not
really an oyster at all: just a rather unsavory cousin from another
family.
So, The Big Oyster may put you off oysters, but if not there are plenty of
recipes here, culled from the best ancient and modern cookbooks, for you
to try
out.
Also, by the end of the book you will be superbly informed about the
original
inhabitants of the New York area. They were people with names such as
Jonathan
Swift might have borrowed for Gulliver's Travels: the Lanape people, whose
culture was rich and diverse, ate copious quantities of oysters, the
shells of
which still lie beneath Manhattan, Rockaway, Bayswater and many other city
areas. They called the first Europeans to visit their shores the 'Salty
People', welcomed them and traded with them, but did not understand their
concept of land owner****p and had no resistance to their diseases.
Gradually
relation****ps between the Lenape and the 'Salty People' soured. And
eventually
the protective wall that was built around New Amsterdam demonstrated the
mistrust that came to exist between them.
In between telling us ALL about oysters, oyster collection and oyster
cultivation, Mark Kurlansky outlines the growth of New York city and its
markets, the growth of the oyster trade interstate and overseas, the
effect of
the American Revolution on New York and its oysters, and the seemingly
never-ending popularity of oyster stalls, oyster barges, oyster cuisine
and,
for the poorest people, the availability of oysters as a cheap but not
very
nutritious food-source. Sadly, he charts, too, the growing effects on the
oysters of overpopulation and industrialization, and the consequent
pollution
of the waterways in which they live.
So, in spite of the jokey chapter headings, the generous (overgenerous,
even)
larding of quotes at the head of each chapter, and the many curious and
tempting recipes, the serious message of this book (as of Kurlansky's
earlier
book Cod) is depressing. The history of the oyster shows, quite clearly,
how
effectively we are destroying the natural world around us. So, what once
seemed
to be an inexhaustible supply of food is now an expensive delicacy and,
unless
we change our ways, the oyster will soon be off the menu for good. "If we
had
the ability to see deep into the water, it would have been different",
Kurlansky suggests. Perhaps. But even the small changes we have made as we
have
become more environmentally conscious are not enough. Oysters are
returning to
New York waters and are making their own contribution to filtering out
the
pollutants, but, as one scientist notes "In our lifetime, there's no hope
we
could eat them, because the water contains heavy metals". It is the same
sad
story around the world.
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Copyright © Ann Skea 2005
Ann Skea
Website and Ted Hughes pages: http://ann.skea.com/
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