A deep dive into the culinary, literary, and underwater lives of that most noble and inscrutable bivalve, the oyster.

In Consider the Oyster, M.F.K. Fisher explores the many lives of the mysterious oyster—from its strange cloistered existence in the watery depths to the many roles it has played in our culinary history as table fare both humble and refined. In this canonical study of one of the ocean’s most intriguing inhabitants, Fisher combines folklore, family history, memoir, and recipes to evoke a picture of a most compelling creature. Whether describing her own introduction to the “strange cold succulence” of an oyster as a young woman in Marseille and Dijon, or her mother’s delight at encountering oyster loaf in a girls’ dorm in the 1890s, M.F.K. Fisher’s wise, witty prose piques the appetite and rouses the senses to consider the hidden possibilities of this most beguiling mollusk.