The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
‘The Essential Oyster’
Book offers salty appreciation of oyster mania.
A whole lot has changed in the decade since Rowan Jacobsen’s James Beard Award-winning “A Geography of Oysters-: The Connoisseur’s Guide to Oyster Eating in North America” (Bloomsbury $15.99) was published.
As Jacobsen writes in the intro to his new book, “The Essential Oyster: A Salty Appreciation of Taste and Temptation” (Bloomsbury, $30), that first guide “helped accelerate the oyster mania we now find ourselves in.”
A paragraph later, he writes that oysters “can cause people to part from their economic senses in a way generally reserved for drugs and sex,” and allows that he considers them “more mood than food.”
But beyond the primal, sensual rituals of shucking and slurping taking place at myriad bars and restaurants all over America, “The Essential Oyster” celebrates the diversity and deliciousness brought about by a new wave of oyster farmers, who are using sustainable practices to produce premium products along our coastlines.
Last month at Kimball House in Decatur, arguably Atlanta’s great temple of oyster appreciation, I sat down with Jacobsen over a round tray of iced oysters he’d chosen from the menu.
Among them: long, lean, salt lick-like Caper’s Blades from the low country of South Carolina, famously cultivated by “Clammer Dave” Belanger; herbaceous and briny Hama Hama from Hood Canal in Washington state; and scallopy-sweet, perfectly crisp Glidden Point from the Damariscotta River in Maine.
Asked about his first oyster experience, Jacobsen recalled growing up in Deland, Fla. and going on weekend trips to New Smyrna Beach with his family.
“I was probably 12 or 13, there was this place called Stormy’s Crab House that had a raw bar with oysters, and my dad dared me to eat one,” Jacobsen said. “It was scary. But by the third one, it seemed less scary. And then I just always liked them.
“Later, as an adult and a food writer, I became fascinated with how oysters were always named for the place they came from — just like wine and for the same reason — the place and terroir helps make the oyster.”
Reflecting on the current scene, Jacobsen said he felt compelled to research and write an updated account of his ongoing oyster adventures.
“When I wrote that first book, I ended up sticking my surfboard just ahead of the wave, and the wave came through, and it’s still building,” Jacobsen said. “But there were things that I wanted to write about that really weren’t on my radar then, especially the Southeast and the Gulf Coast.
“The more I learned about farming and got to know people in the industry, I realized it ain’t all about terroir. What people do is really important, too. And, actually, it’s a bigger factor now because the farming techniques are getting more sophisticated.”
While Jacobsen revels in the romance and lore of oysters, and has strong opinions how about how best to eat them — raw and unadulterated with a crispy Chablis or a cold beer — he also appreciates their culinary potential.
“I think oysters can be super successful as an ingredient,
successful as an ingredient, because they have that great saline quality, but they need to be treated with a very light hand and not overcooked,” he said.
The “The Essential Oyster” includes more than a dozen recipes from American chefs at restaurants that take that approach. We also asked Myles Smith, the young chef at Kimball House, to come up with a couple of local recipes.
In all, there are four recipes to try, ranging from a hearty oyster stew and an elegant oyster risotto to a dirty martini made with oyster brine.