The P&J Oyster Cookbook - Hardcover

Wohl, Kit; Sunseri Family

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1589806492 ISBN 13: 9781589806498

Publisher: Pelican Publishing Company, 2009

Synopsis

The bivalve lover's guide to Louisiana's best oysters. From the brackish bayous of Louisiana to the tables of some of the most beloved restaurants around the country, P&J oysters are among the best in the industry. Featuring recipes for oysters on the half shell, oyster appetizers, baked oysters, and grilled oysters, this lavish cookbook includes a history of the legendary P&J Oyster Company, tantalizing photographs of prepared oyster dishes, and shots of oysters in their native beds during the harvesting process.

About this title

About the Author

Kit Wohl is a cookbook author, photographer, graphic designer, and artist. She has worked with chefs, restaurants, and hotels across the country as the CEO of Wohl & Company, and she drew from her passion for the culinary arts to produce Arnaud's Restaurant Cookbook.  After she completed that cookbook in 2005, Wohl produced New Orleans Classic Desserts for Pelican. The series has grown, and each of Wohl's volumes covers a different aspect of New Orleans's traditional cuisine. New Orleans Classic Gumbos and Soups was chosen by Gourmet Magazine as their February 2009 Cookbook Club selection.  For each of her cookbooks, Wohl chooses recipes from the repertoires of a wide range of restaurant kitchens and professional chefs. All recipes are tested and adapted to home-kitchen standards, and each is illustrated with one of her photographs.   Cooking is an art and a form of creative expression, she says. Food is distinctive in form, color, texture, and flavor. The selection, preparation, and presentation of a meal are as creative as any art project. Best of all, it nurtures both the body and the spirit.  Her energy and artistic talent have resulted in numerous awards for design and production in various fields, including a Clio Award, the advertising industry's equivalent of the Emmy. She was a longtime board member for the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and has been active in many of the city's civic, educational, and charitable organizations. Wohl and her husband, Billy, live in New Orleans with a trio of Abyssinian cats.

From the Back Cover

"Generously accompanied by color photos of most finished dishes, as well as sauces and seasonings, this luscious collection will give any oyster fan reason to celebrate."
--Publishers Weekly starred review

"Three things that I love in this world are oysters, champagne and an inspiringly beautiful cookbook. The P&J Oyster Cookbook has all three and then some: a fais do-do of oysters in every way, the champagne that I opened the moment I turned its first pages and a brilliant new approach to food photography that magnificently shows off a critter that is famously difficult to look like something with which you must rush out and have a gastronomic affair."
--Jeremiah Tower

"This cookbook is a great survey of the culinary possibilities of the bivalve. P&J Oysters is the primary reason New Orleans is the American capital of oysterdom. And New Orleans is the primary reason so many Americans eat oysters."
--Leopold Froehlich, Playboy magazine

"There is no one better to have chronicled New Orleanians' love of oysters than the Sunseri family from whom my family has bought oysters for sixty-five-plus years. These recipes burst off the page with the Sunseris' passion for our Louisiana oysters. I've always said my last meal would be an oyster po' boy-dressed. Now I know what several of the meals leading up to that one will be."
--Ti Adelaide Martin, Commander's Palace, Caf� Adelaide and the Swizzle Stick Bar

"Mollusks are featured in every conceivable incarnation--stopping just short of dessert. . . . Yum."
--Louisiana Cookin' magazine

"This is the real deal."
--New Orleans Times-Picayune

"Wohl's masterpiece is loaded with oyster recipes from some of the world's most famous restaurants and the photography is stunning."
--Flavors and More magazine

"The bivalves hit on all cylinders in artist/author Kit Wohl's beautifully photographed and richly referenced P&J Oyster Cookbook."
--Lafayette (LA) Independent Weekly

"We should all put our hands together for the timely release of The P&J Oyster Cookbook, lovingly created by Kit Wohl and the Sunseri Family with special thanks to contributing local restaurants and chefs whose recipes were included in this spectacular, mouth-watering tome."
--NewOrleans.com

"Dozens and dozens of recipes alongside good-enough-to-eat photos teach you how to prepare these savory mollusks raw, grilled, fried, baked, in a gumbo or in a pie."
--New Orleans Magazine

From the Inside Flap

During a visit to New Orleans, Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt found himself at Antoine's Restaurant being treated to Oysters Rockefeller by the city's rather raffish mayor, Robert Maestri. Reportedly, hizzoner turned to the president and asked, "How do you like them ersters?" Roosevelt's answer was not recorded, but we New Orleanians don't mince words: we love 'em. We'll eat them any which way, from raw on the half shell to dished up in culinary finery and served with a flourish.

The P&J Oyster Cookbook is a collection of more than 120 oyster recipes provided by chefs who revel in cooking the luscious bivalve plucked from the Gulf of Mexico. Featuring recipes from legendary New Orleans restaurants such as Commander's Palace, Galatoire's, Mother's, and Dickie Brennan's Bourbon House, this beautifully photographed volume also includes favorite recipes handed down through several generations of the P&J Oyster Company's owners, the Sunseri family. Collectively, these delectable oyster dishes will take your taste buds around the city and through the country, with a few side trips to other parts of the world. Easy to prepare and suitable for almost any occasion, these recipes have been home-kitchen tested to help ensure that each dish is a success.

P&J Oyster Company is the oldest continuously operating oyster house in America. Since 1876, it has been cultivating, harvesting, processing, and selling the delicious mollusks to the finest restaurants and the most discriminating retail customers. In 1889, Antoine's created Oysters Rockefeller with P&J oysters. The company's oysters also were present at the creation of Oysters Bienville and many other classic New Orleans oyster dishes. Chef Leah Chase, widely recognized as the "queen of Creole cooking," has never allowed any other oyster in her kitchen.

Reviews

Starred Review. New Orleans's long-time love affair with the oyster has produced this cookbook, from one of the city's oldest oyster purveyors, showcasing the best ways to enjoy its star shellfish. With the help of local food writer Wohl, P&J Oyster owners the Sunseris asked local chefs for their favorite oyster dishes, and received a bounty as rich as the mollusk itself. Organized by preparation method (raw, baked, grilled, fried, and incorporated into other dishes), this volume offers almost a hundred methods for preparing oysters, from classics like oyster dressing, gumbo and po-boys to garlic-and-lemon grilled, in rich Oyster Biscuit Pudding , or Stewed in Cream. Purists will enjoy iconic dishes like the original Oysters Rockefeller, invented at New Orleans's Antoines restaurant in the 1800s, Angels on Horseback, and simply, classically-presented raw oysters on the half shell. Generously accompanied by color photos of most finished dishes, as well as sauces and seasonings, this luscious collection will give any oyster fan reason to celebrate.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pelican Publishing Company
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1589806492
• ISBN 13: 9781589806498
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224