The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. Research addict Kurlansky (Cod, etc.) starts from the earliest evidence of Lenape oyster middens, or beds, discovered by explorer Henry Hudson and others as evidence that natives enjoyed the shellfish as a delicacy, much as the Europeans did. When the Dutch arrived, the estuary of the lower Hudson, with its rich confluence of rivers, contained 350 square miles of oyster beds—"fully half of the world's oysters." The huge oyster stores contributed mightily to the mercantile wealth and natural renown of New Amsterdam, then inherited by the British, who were crazy about oysters; pickled oysters became an important trade with British West Indies slave plantations. All rights reserved. Kurlansky's history digresses all over the place, and sparkles. From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. While

Oysters and WW2 Christopher Kelly In Mark Kurlansky's wonderful book, The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell we learn about the bivalve bounty that once existed off the shores of Manhattan. Kurlansnky writes, "By 1880, New York was the undisputed capital of history's greatest oyster boom in its golden age, which lasted until at least 1910. The oyster beds of the New York area were producing 700 million oysters a year."The first blow to oyster production was sewage. "The reality . Historical fiction at best Very disappointed, the topic had great potential but it ended up being more of a cookbook than a history of New York City and oysters. As others pointed out there are many, many inaccuracies which makes me wonder if anyone bothered to fact check his work. For example, he says Port Jefferson is a town on the East River when actually it's a town on the north Shore of Long Island and is on the Long Island Sound. As a NY ERROR he never should have made. The start of the book was good, but the author put in so many esoteric I gave up and hadn't made it more than 25% in. That is unusual for me. The start of the book was good, but the author put in so many esoteric stories and details that I found I was dreading reading on.

From the Minuit purchase until centuries of pollution finally destroyed the beds in the 1920s, New York was a city known for its oysters: the 'Blue Points,' still produced by the Long Island town of the same name; the 'Rockaways' and 'East Rivers'; 'Sounds' from Staten Island; several Manhattan varieties, and even those from a celebrated area by what is now LaGuardia Airport. In 1842, when the novelist Charles Dickens arrived in New York, he could not conceal his eagerness to find and experience the fabled oyster cellars of New York City's slums. When Peter Minuit bought Manhattan for $24 in 1626 - his first New York real estate killing - he showed h