A Geography of Oysters: The Connoisseur's Guide to Oyster Eating in North America

Passionate and playful, this is the first comprehensive guide to identifying, serving, and savoring one of America's original and most delicious foods. Considered one of the great sensual foods since the time of ancient Rome, eaten in the United States since its earliest human habitation, oysters are now seeing an American renaissance. Like wine and cheese, they owe much of their flavor to terroir, or the specific environment in which they grow--indeed, oysters are the food that tastes most like the sea. Today, there are at least two hundred unique oyster "appellations" in North America, each producing oysters with a distinct and consistent flavor--some merely passable, others dazzling. Beautifully written and illustrated, A Geography of Oysters is an indispensable guide to the oysters of America, describing each oyster's appearance, flavor, origin, and availability.