In the decades after the Civil War, Chesapeake Bay became the scene of a life and death struggle to harvest the oyster.

Bill Buford's Heat meets Phoebe Damrosch's Service Included in this unique blend of personal narrative, food miscellany, and history In March of 2009, Erin Byer

This cultural and ecological history explores the rise of Chesapeake’s mighty mollusk from Colonial-era harvesting to contemporary cultivation. Oysters are an