In search of the sustainable, local oyster. In 1941 food writer
M.F.K. Fisher saluted the daring of the Atlantic Coast oyster,
which, unlike its West Coast relatives, spends its childhood and
adolescence alone in the tides, far from the spot of its
conception. In her book Consider the Oyster, Fisher emphasizes
that American oysters differ in habit just as much as American
people do. For American oysters, different habits beget
different flavors. When it came to oysters served raw on the
half shell, Fisher was partial to those from Long Island Sound,
but the denizens of our own Delaware Bay also rate an
enthusiastic mention. But even at the time of Fisher's writing,
the Delaware Bay oyster fishery was in decline. In 1950 the
harvest had dropped to 1 million bushels a year, down from a
peak of 2.4 million in 1880. The situation grew even grimmer for
bivalves that hoped to moor themselves to the floor of the bay
during the second half of the 20th century: Waves of disease
decimated the population, leading to a c