Last week I finally read The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell, by Mark Kurlansky. My dad gave it to me while we were in Vegas last month but I didn’t get to seriously dig into it because I’ve been a bit swamped at work lately. Kurlansky is a wonderful writer and this is the third of his books that I’ve read. The Big Oyster is every bit as fascinating as Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World and Salt: A World History. Most of my friends roll their eyes at me when I tell them this, but it’s true. Since I’m from Rhode Island, I have always sort of thought of oysters as second-class bivalves, bastard, grotesque step-brothers of my beloved littleneck clams. Now I have a new respect for them and even slurped a raw one tonight — we had dinner at The Palm with my girlfriend’s parents.
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The Big Oyster
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Missing Fish
For weekend fishermen, there are many tall tales about “the big one that got away.” The results of a new study indicate that big fish are indeed hard to catch. But disturbingly, the results suggest that’s because the world’s large fish–tuna, marlin, swordfish, sharks, cod and halibut among them–have been so exploited by industrial fisheries that 90 percent of them have disappeared from the sea.
See also: Cod
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Interesting Books
I finished reading Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World and am most of the way through Eat the Rich and The Best American Science Writing 2001. I made another trip to the bookstore this week and picked up Lennon Remembers, A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth, and the latest copy of Scientific American.
Cod was truly an excellent book; I highly recommend it. It’s incredible to learn how much of our lives have been shaped by a fish. Mark Kurlansky is a tremendous author and I can’t wait to read Salt: A World History.
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