Gifts for Foragers

It's that time of year. FOTL doesn't endorse Black Friday, hellish trips to malls, or other forms of conspicuous consumption (shopping gives him hives, truth be told), but it is traditionally a time of giving, so we'll be offering a few suggestions over the next few weeks for the forager on your list.

First up is the book Geography of Oysters by Rowan Jacobsen, an informative, witty, and fast-paced appraisal of the ostreaphagist landscape. Eating a raw oyster is about the most carnivorous act of feeding most of us westerners (as in hemisphere) will engage in during our lives. The oyster is still alive, after all, or it should be. But what pleasure and sensuality too! As the French poet Leon-Paul Fargue said, eating oysters is "like kissing the sea on the lips." This is a good time to be an ostreaphile. After centuries of decline during which the planet's original oyster beds were pillaged and polluted into near extinction, the oyster is making a comeback with new aquaculture techniques and a dedicated confederacy of shellfish farmers, improving water quality in the process. Jacobsen introduces us to the major species of oyster on the culinary stage, their commercial history, and the current state of oyster eating in the world.

Admittedly, Geography is more for the oyster eater than the forager, but for those of us lucky enough to live in places where wild oysters can still be gathered off the beach—primarily Florida, Louisiana, Washington, and B.C.—there's knowledge to be gained about what it is we're eating. For the rest of the oyster-slurping public, Geography is a primer—not unlike a wine guide—on the tastes and textures of the most famous—to extend the wine metaphor—oyster appellations around the world, and how to pair these inimitable bivalves with other foods and drinks.

As Jacobsen writes, "When you eat oysters, you wake up." Anyone who enjoys oysters will devour this book and then make tracks for the nearest fish market, raw bar, or oyster beach, senses alert in anticipation.