History, Natural History & the Arts
The waters around Long Island were long known for their bounty. Fish and oysters sustained the indigenous population long before the coming of Europeans.
The settlers developed full-fledged oyster (Crassostrea virginica) and then hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria) industries and fished striped bass, bluefish, flounder (fluke), and weakfish. [Read more…] about Long Island Baymen & Great South Bay Seafood
New York State was the birthplace of the American canning industry and grew to become one of the nation’s most prolific food processing hubs by the late 19th century. The state’s history is marked by early technological developments, massive growth during wartime, and the rise of major corporate processors.
Initially, canned foods were not widely accepted, however. The overarching factor that drove the prevalence and public acceptance of canned food was the symbiotic relationship between the evolving canning industry and the changing role of women, in particular their need or desire to work in the public sphere. [Read more…] about Women’s Role in Canned Food Consumption
The Gowanus Canal (originally known as Gowanus Creek) is a 1.8-mile-long waterway in Brooklyn that was once a saltwater marsh teeming with wildlife, but is now among the most polluted bodies of water in the United States.
The area’s early settlers, on the first land patents issued in Breukelen (today Brooklyn), named the waterway “Gowanes Creek” after Gouwane a sachem (chief) of the Canarsee, an indigenous Lenape tribe who exploited the waterway’s resources and farmed its shores. [Read more…] about Gowanus Canal is Getting Cleaner Every Day
At the start of the 1880s, Barcelona was an expanding city of about 350,000 people. Its medieval walls had been knocked down only twenty-five years earlier. Capital of the autonomous community of Catalonia, city and region developed into Spain’s economic dynamo. Prosperity mushroomed. A self-confident territory strove to re-establish its identity by invigorating local traditions, culture and language. Barcelona became an engine of change and modernity. [Read more…] about Catalonia in Manhattan: The Architectural Legacy of Rafael Guastavino
Relative to the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area, Staten Island has been both water-bound and isolated. Historically, the island’s western border, the Arthur Kill channel, and its northwestern border, the Kill Van Kull, played vital roles connecting New York with New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Long Island Sound.
Staten Island rests between New York Bay and New Jersey’s northwestern shoreline, the Arthur Kill channel separating the Island from the latter. The Island’s geographical center is situated 11 miles southwest of New York City. [Read more…] about The Development of Staten Island
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has announced grants totaling more than $1.4 million for 23 projects to help communities along the Hudson River Estuary improve water quality and enhance environmental education and stewardship.
The announcement coincides with the 20th Annual ‘Day in the Life of the Hudson and Harbor,’ where 5,000 student scientists are gathering along the Hudson River and New York Harbor to collect data on the Hudson’s fish and invertebrates, track the river’s tides and currents, and examine water chemistry and quality. [Read more…] about $1.4M For Hudson River Estuary Community Projects
At least since Roman times oysters were associated with sex. The most obvious reason for this association is the oyster’s resemblance to the pudendum. Raw oyster was praised as an aphrodisiac. Giacomo Casanova boasted to have eaten fifty at breakfast together with a lady of his fancy.
European painters used oyster as a symbol of fertility and sexual pleasure. Aphrodite (Venus), the Goddess of love and lust, was blown over sea on an oyster shell landing at either Cythera of Cyprus (both islands were regarded by the Greeks as territories of Venus). In “The Birth of Venus” Botticelli painted her approaching the shore on a giant oyster (clam) shell. By then, the associations with female beauty and physical love were well established. [Read more…] about Jonathan Swift’s Oyster Test: Oysters, Sex and Culture
For thousands of years the Thames provided London’s inhabitants with a plentiful supply and variety of fish. Until the 1820s locally caught fish was the city’s staple diet. Subsequent pollution of the river drove many professional fishermen and their families into financial ruin because of the collapse of fish populations.
Up until the twentieth century New York Harbor oysters reigned as the quintessential New York food long before pizza, pretzels, bagels, or hot dogs took their place. The metropolis once was a Big Oyster. There too, reckless management of the marine environment led to the obliteration of a huge natural resource. [Read more…] about Oyster Slurpers: A Tale of Two Rivers
When bare-knuckle “fair fight” pugilism reached a height in popularity in England in the early 1820s, many English boxers moved to the city of New York. Some simply for greener, less crowded professional pastures and others out of frustration over corruption or suppression of the sport by British authorities.
In the United States, these men bolstered the “manly art of self defense” by competing in local matches, opening gymnasiums, arranging fights, and training a new generation of American boxers. [Read more…] about The Oysters Sign: 19th Century Boxing’s Most Prized Trophy
Weightism is a bias or discrimination against people who are overweight. It is based on a set of stereotypes about the abilities of overweight individuals and includes prejudices that they are self-indulgent, socially inept, and mentally slow. Obesity was judged to be incompatible with intelligence and acuity.
The weight stigma is a relatively modern one. Fat shaming started in the 1950s. In March 1954, Life magazine featured an article entitled “The Plague of Overweight” in which obesity was described as the most serious health problem of the day. Without any further consideration the condition was linked to gluttony. At the time, only around three percent of Americans were considered overweight.
From the Renaissance onward, obesity had suggested wealth and power. It pointed at the means to supply and enjoy the luxury of food. Plumpness equaled prosperity. If one’s body was a temple, then being the size of a cathedral signaled status. Physical proportion was a badge of economic and physical well-being, both in individual and national terms. [Read more…] about The Joy of Eating: Billy Possum, Fat Men Clubs & Obesity History
September 1st was the opening of oyster season on the 19th century dining calendar.
“What the last Thursday of November is to the American turkey gobbler, such is the first day of September to the American oyster. … The autumn brings back the magical ‘r.’” The Post and Gazette of Elizabethtown, in Essex County, reported on September 11th, 1879. [Read more…] about Oyster Season In 19th Century New York
The Billion Oyster Project is a nonprofit organization on a mission to restore oyster reefs to New York Harbor through public education initiatives.
Why oysters? Their reefs provide habitat for many marine species, have the ability to filter water, protect water quality, and help shield New York City shorelines from storm damage. [Read more…] about The Billion Oyster Project Is Working To Restore NY’s Oyster Reefs
Theologically, I identify as an ecumenical pot luck supper observer.
So, this historic pun caught my fancy.
“The all-absorbing question agitating the public mind at Sandy Hill is: ‘If a Roman Catholic roasts an Episcopalian’s turkey in a Methodist oven, what denomination will the turkey be?’” The Morning Star of Glens Falls asked on January 12th, 1884. “All the sages have given it up.” [Read more…] about Pot-Luck Suppers Of Yesteryear
In 1776 John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail about July 4th:
“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
242 years after John Adams’ exhortation, people in the city of New York are still struggling with how to celebrate July 4, and its meaning. In the City of New York July 4 celebrations held after the enactment of the U.S. Constitution were anything but nonpartisan. [Read more…] about Tammany and NYC’s Fourth of July Celebrations
I just finished reading Mark Kurlansky’s The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell
. It’s basically a short history of New York City told through the city’s natural environment and one of its most significant natural resources (possibly second only to its natural harbor) – the oyster.
I’ve also read, and can highly recommend, three of Kurlansky’s previous books.
Cod: A Biography of The Fish The Changed the World
The Basque History of the World
All have implications for New York History – according to esteemed Iroquoisian Dean Snow, the word Iroquois is derived from a Basque word, a demonstration of their subtle impact in our region during their search for Cod off the Grand Banks, Cod they then salted to preserve. Throughout all three books Kurlansky includes historic recipes and other culinary history.
The Big Oyster is a must read for those interested in natural history, marine history, the Atlantic World, and food history as well as those with a taste for urban history and the New York City underworld of oyster cellars, cartmen, and seedy public spaces of all kinds.
Erik Baard of the blog Nature Calendar:Your Urban Wilderness Community posted an interesting interview with Kurlansky last week, and also points us to the upcoming Spring/Summer 2008 Oyster Gardening Event:
This program, in collaboration with NY/NJ Baykeeper and the New York Harbor School, seeks to increase stewardship among residents of the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary by working with volunteers from schools and community organizations in New York City to help prepare an oyster reef off the Tribeca waterfront. The project builds on the results of NY/NJ Baykeeper oyster reef restoration in New Jersey and research conducted by The River Project at its Pier 26 field station in New York.
A taste of the interview with Kurlansky:
Erik Baard: The Dutch and British settlers used that shell lime to construct stone homes. And I’m kind of curious about the many ways oysters were used. It’s a very versatile product, the meat, the shell being used for construction of buildings… How else were they used?
Mark Kurlansky: They were used in roads, you know, paving roads and in landfill. They were use to fertilize soil, to increase the lime content of the soil, which used to be called “sweetening the soil.” You could just plow oysters under. In fact, Europeans who visited were surprised to see that. The European way was always to grind it up and create this lime powder that you use as fertilizer, but New York farmers used to just take whole shells and put them in the earth.
Erik Baard: And this would lower the acidity?
Mark Kurlansky: Right. Okay.
Erik Baard: Now also, Pearl Street, you clarified some mythologies on that.
Mark Kurlansky: Yes, for some reason there’s a lot of mythologies about Pearl Street. I was just on Pearl Street last Saturday, I was thinking about this. Pearl Street was the waterfront in Dutch times, in the original Manhattan. It continues now several blocks further because of landfill. And there’s lots of stories about why it was called Pearl Street. But the real reason seems to be that on the waters edge there, the Indians had left large piles of shells.
Erik Baard: It wasn’t paved with the oyster shells?
Mark Kurlansky: No you often hear that but, one of the first things I noticed when I was researching this book was that the street got its name before it was paved
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