The big oyster : a molluscular history of New York

When Peter Minuit Bought Manhattan For $24 In 1626 He Showed His Shrewdness By Also Buying The Oyster Beds Off Tiny, Nearby Oyster Island, Renamed Ellis Island In 1770. From The Minuit Purchase Until Pollution Finally Destroyed The Beds In The 1920S, New York Was A City Known For Its Oysters, Especially In The Late 1800S, When Europe And America Enjoyed A Decades-Long Oyster Craze. In A Dubious Endorsement, William Makepeace Thackeray Said That Eating A New York Oyster Was Like Eating A Baby. Travellers To New York Were Also Keen To Experience The Famous New York Oyster Houses. While Some Were Known For Their Elegance, Due To A Longstanding Belief In The Aphrodisiac Quality Of Oysters, They Were Often Associated With Prostitution. 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. The Big Oyster Is The Story Of A City And Of An International Trade.Filled With Cultural, Social And Culinary Insight As Well As Recipes, Maps, Drawings And Photographs This Is History At Its Most Engrossing, Entertaining And Delicious. 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.From the Hardcover edition. From the Minuit purchase until pollution finally destroyed the beds in the 1920s, New York was a city known for its oysters. This title presents the story of a city and of an international trade. It features cultural, social and culinary insight - as well as recipes, maps, drawings and photographs.