Cuisine and Culture Converge in ‘The Joy of Oysters’

Despite true tales of shell mounds once overwhelming the streets of New York City, never before has oyster culture so enveloped the entire United States, where the briny bivalves can be enjoyed at restaurants both fancy and casual from coast to coast. Into this maritime milieu comes The Joy of Oysters: A Complete Guide to Sourcing, Shucking, Grilling, Broiling, and Frying, an engaging, colorful 200-page cookbook full of recipes but also vignettes on the history, science, customs, and personalities connected to the globe-spanning shellfish. 

“There are a handful of oyster books and they’re all really good, but they tend to be a bit more academic or focused on a specific region,” explains author Nils Bernstein, a longtime music industry executive who shifted into food and drink journalism about a decade ago. “A lot of the literature around oysters makes them more intimidating, so I thought that there was room for something that, whether you’re an expert or a novice, you could just be motivated to enjoy them, to shuck them, to cook them, to learn about them, and to take all that intimidation factor away.”

Originally from Seattle, where personal connections to the emerging grunge music scene led to jobs at Sub Pop and Matador records, Bernstein got into food writing while splitting his time in New York City and Mexico City, which became his primary residence during the pandemic. “I always worked in music, but my passion was food and drink,” said Bernstein, who is the food editor for Wine Enthusiast, where we met as colleagues a decade ago. “As I aged out of the music industry, I shifted over to food and drink as work, with music as my passion.”