Sex, Death and Oysters

When award-winning Texas food writer Robb Walsh discovers that the local Galveston Bay oysters are being passed off as Blue Points and Chincoteagues in other parts of the country, he decides to look into the matter. Thus begins a five-year journey into the culture of one of the world's oldest delicacies. Walsh's through-the-looking-glass adventure takes him from oyster reefs to oyster bars and from corporate boardrooms to hotel bedrooms in a quest for the truth about the world's most profitable aphrodisiac. On the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Gulf coasts of the U.S., as well as the Canadian Maritimes, Ireland, England, and France, the author ingests thousands of oysters-raw, roasted, barbecued, and baked-all for the sake of making a fair comparison. He also considers the merits of a wide variety of accompanying libations, including tart white wines in Paris, Guinness in Galway, martinis in London, microbrews in the Pacific Northwest, and tequila in Texas. Sex, Death and Oysters is a record of a gastronomic adventure with illustrations and recipes-a fascinating collection of the most exciting, instructive, poignant, and just plain weird experiences on a trip into the world of the most beloved and feared of all seafoods.

Robb Walsh has been a food writer for 15 years. He has been the restaurant critic for the Houston Press since 2000 and was formerly the food columnist for Natural History magazine and the editor in chief of Chile Pepper magazine. He currently writes for Gourmet, Saveur, and other publications. He has been nominated for the James Beard Award 13 times and won twice. He has also won the Bert Greene Award for Newspaper Food Journalism as well as several awards from the Association of Food Journalists. His books include The Texas Cowboy Cookbook, Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook, The Tex-Mex Cookbook, and Are You Really Going to Eat That? Walsh's newspaper and magazine articles appear in several anthologies including Best Food Writing 2001-2006 and Cornbread Nation, Best Southern Food Writing I & II, from the Southern Foodways Alliance and University of North Carolina Press.