Long ago, Ralph Waldo Emerson noted that life is a journey, not a destination. How extraordinary when that journey awakens every sense — arriving in a small, rugged shell, steeped in brine, and nurtured by the sea.
I remember where I was, who I was with and what I was experiencing for the first time.
A fresh, raw oyster.
Coaxed into trying it, I acquiesced. Buried in cocktail sauce I squeamishly choked it down, then smiled at the accomplishment. I remember thinking — it would be a good long time before I did that again. Today, fresh oysters are the first item I scan for on a restaurant’s menu.
In “Oyster Society” by Virginia Shaffer the focus on this saltwater bivalve mollusk runs deep. Shaffer’s storytelling may focus on the culinary treat that awaits tucked between hard shells, but the brilliance of her story is that of the people this tiny mollusk impacts, the places its presence sustains and the sheer joy brought to many by a fresh oyster.
Shaffer lives in Bath with her husband. She is a food writer, certified oyster sommelier, and is the founder of Maine’s first oyster culinary tour company — Lady Oyster Tours & Tastings. Shaffer has written about shellfish for over ten years and has been featured on NPR and Boston Chronicle. Her writing has been published in numerous publications. This is her first book.
Leaving a successful corporate life in Boston, Shaffer follows her passion with an ingrained sense of purpose. She spends a decade learning and writing about oysters on her blog. This pursuit takes her many places, harbors many dialogues with people entrenched in the industry, notably revealing the profound impact of oysters on the ecosystem.
It is this purpose that travels many miles, many conversations, in prose that is genuine and comfortable. Her encounters take the reader “along for a ride” to an oyster renaissance happening right now. Sprinkled in amongst the oyster shells are recipes, places to check out for fellow oyster travelers, reference materials and a glossary of the oyster industry businesses and people Shaffer had the pleasure of meeting.
From that first mudflat in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, Shaffer strengthens a passion she knew was real and discovers a journey that had been waiting a long time. “Oysters are a time machine. When you hold one in your hands, you’re seeing and feeling our planet’s 250-million-year-history.”
Her travels after that “muddy encounter” are memorable in the people she meets and the stories they have to share in devotion to all things oysters. From island shacks, town and city bars, seafood expositions, oyster shucking contests and oyster farms, Shaffer is at home expressing it all.
“I was falling in love with the people I was meeting. They were bold, quirky, inviting, and so sure of their vocation. The industry was nothing like the stuffy books I read of burly fishermen charting the high seas—it was a much more diverse representation of North American voices. They had funny names like “Oyster Ninja,” “Dr. Oyster,” “Holy City Oyster Maven,” and “Shucker Paddy.” They wielded knives, fought for the environment, and flipped cages full of oysters.”
In the end Shaffer comes full circle in her journey with this reflection: “Cooking, laughing, and sharing a passion for oysters had to be the richest life of all. The younger me, hiding in a tree or climbing over sharp oyster beds, would have wanted this. I had learned from oysters, found kinship, and in the end, created an experience that provoked the same curiosity in others. For the first time, I felt whole.”
A culinary memoir for sure, but one that isn’t about reaching a final destination; it is a deep dive into the brackish, unforgettable waters of a life shaped by the sea and will satisfy the appetite and appeal to the “wannabe” connoisseur searching for another challenge or the uninitiated wanting to learn all there is to know while trying something new.
And if you are apt to think — “no way” am I trying that, this book still remains worthy of your time because it is a way to get close to knowing a marvelous group of people, special places and a small salt-water bivalve mollusk that in its own grand way impacts it all.
“Oyster Society: Adventures with the Shellfishly Motivated,” by Virginia Shaffer, is published by Islandport Press, 2026, hardcover $26.95.