Snow by Night

The Cuisine section of the Almanac gets some love with a discussion of oysters. Oysters played an enormous role in the history of the United States and Canada in the real world. Billions of oysters were harvested from the Chesapeake Bay over the course of the 1800s. One of the principle reasons for the construction of the C&O canal was to transport oysters to the Ohio country. The rail lines replaced the canals, and still the oysters flowed. These bivalves fed a young nation. The wealth of the Bay created a gold-rush mentality that led to the “Oyster Wars” and the creation of the Maryland Oyster Navy. And no, I’m not make this part up. Read all about it here.

Sadly, the Chesapeake was horribly overfarmed. The oyster beds were dredged until nothing was left in the 19th century, and oyster diseases wiped out much of what was left in the 20th. The number of oysters in the Chesapeake are at 2% of the numbers that they were in colonial times. A regional partnership – the Chesapeake Bay Program – is endeavoring to reverse the damage, but there so much to do. The beds have to be rebuilt and new oysters seeded. It will take decades to restore the bay to what it once was.

Topics: Almanac