If anyone can entice the public to read an entire book about oysters, it’s Mark Kurlansky, the man who turned single-subject food histories (“Cod” in 1997 and “Salt” in 2002) into best-sellers.
This time out, with “The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell,” (Ballantine Books), Kurlansky focuses on the East Coast bivalve, taking on topics such as the difference between pearl oysters and edible oysters; the culinary dangers of not taking care of the environment; how oysters came to be known as an aphrodisiac; and the 19th-century connection between freed slaves in Maryland and the oyster beds of New York. Washington Post staff writer Judith Weinraub talked with Kurlansky recently.
Why oysters?
What fascinates me is not so much the food itself but the impact of a food on society and politics. The oyster beds collapsed over a 30-year period ending in 1927 because of pollution and raw sewage in the water the oysters lived in – and people not paying attention. It illustrates everything wrong with the way we develop cities, careening from calamity to calamity without a plan, imagining there aren’t consequences.
Historically, where were the important oyster centers?
On the East Coast, the two important ones were New York City and the Chesapeake Bay. In the early 1800s, the New York beds were exhausted. Freed black oystermen came up from Maryland, which was a slave state, to plant Chesapeake Bay oyster seeds in the harbor. The oyster stands were mostly run by them.
What’s the oyster situation in Louisiana now?
I talked to one of the largest oyster producers, who’s okay. But about half the producers are out of business.
What’s the deal with oyster safety?
Oysters pump in water, take in the nutrients and then pump out the water. The downside is that, depending on the water, all kinds of stuff – bacteria, heavy metal – gets filtered in the oyster. Today you wouldn’t eat a New York City oyster because of the PCBs and mercury. And any oyster can go bad when it dies. But it can live a few weeks out of the water if it’s stored properly, cupside down and in a cool place. … The cupped (nonflat) part holds the liquor, which is like blood to an oyster.
How long have people eaten oysters?
We know they were eaten by native Americans, which is interesting because they were surrounded by lots of other protein sources, like elk and deer and lots of fish. So they (the native Americans) must have liked them, because you need to do a lot of work to get a little bit of oyster.
Oysters are expensive. Have they always been?
Originally, eating oysters crossed all socioeconomic lines. By 1860, more than 12 million oysters were sold in New York markets annually. When hot dogs were first sold, it was hard for them to compete with oysters. You could get a dozen oysters for the price of one hot dog. But in the late 1890s, when the oyster beds in New York were closed because of pollution, it ended that huge supply. And oysters became a food of the rich.
Do all oysters taste the same?
No, oysters are like grapes. They taste different according to the temperature of the water and the salinity and the speed of the currents where they grow.
Does clean water make a difference to oysters?
The New York oyster beds had to be closed down because of the filth and raw sewage. In the 1970s the Clean Water Act made things great for a while. But we’ve become complacent. The book is intended to be a warning about taking care of the urban environment.
Are oysters really an aphrodisiac?
That’s been believed since Roman times. Byron ate oysters, Don Juan, Casanova. In the 18th and 19th centuries in New York City, there was an enormous number of prostitutes frequenting the same areas that the oyster cellars were. The idea was that if you went to an oyster cellar, ate oysters and met a woman, you supposedly performed well. But scientists have shown that’s not true.
What did you enjoy about writing this book, compared to “Salt” or “Cod”?
I don’t particularly like cod – and I used to get invitations to a lot of cod receptions. This is much better.
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