The Big Oyster 1 Flashcards
gourmand
n. a person who is devoted to eating and drinking to excess.
“Oysters were true New Yorkers. They were food for gourmets, gourmands, and those who were simply hungry; tantalizing the wealthy in stately homes and sustaining the poor in wretched slums; a part of city commerce and a part of international trade.”
The gourmand (GOOR’-mond) enjoys food with a sensual pleasure. To gourmands the high spots of the day are the times for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight supper; in short, they like to eat, but the eating
must be good. The verb form, gormandize (GAWR’-mon-dlz’), however,
has suffered a degeneration in meaning—it signifies to stuff oneself like a
Pig-
A gourmand is significantly different from a gourmet, who has also a
keen interest in food and liquor, but is much more fastidious, is more of
a connoisseur, has a most discerning palate for delicate tastes, flavors,
and differences; goes in for rare delicacies (like hummingbirds’ tongues
and other such absurdities); and approaches the whole business from a
scientific, as well as a sensual, viewpoint. Gourmet is always a
complimentary term, gourmand somewhat less so.
MD - The words gourmand and gourmet overlap in meaning but are not identical. Both mean ‘a connoisseur of good food,’ but gourmand more usually means ‘a person who enjoys eating and often overeats.’ Tony Soprano - you mang, Uncle june, she’ll come back!
Arty Buco making rabbit stew with his father’s recipes book . - gourmet
gourmet
n. a person devoted to refined sensuous enjoyment( especially good food and drink)
“Oysters were true New Yorkers. They were food for gourmets, gourmands, and those who were simply hungry; tantalizing the wealthy in stately homes and sustaining the poor in wretched slums; a part of city commerce and a part of international trade.”
MD - Gourmet Magazine - a magazine devoted to food and wine.
gale
n. a very strong wind
“Then he picked up a westerly gale and crossed the Atlantic, thousands of miles in the opposite direction of his orders, and reached the North American coast off Newfoundland.”
MD - Gail Saxon owned a fishing boat in Santa Monica. With a name like gale she was destined to sail.
Gale was so strong it could blow a bale of hay in the air
prosaic
adj - commonplace; unromantic. Unimaginative; lacking wit
Munsey (one of the three major Lenape groups) language that gave Manhattan it’s name.
“The even more prosaic possibility that is most often cited is that it comes from menatay, which simply means ‘island.’ “ (11)
MD the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns
Mosaic - beautiful, but mimicking life. it is literal - commonplace; unromatinc; unimaginitive. the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living.
adductor muscle (general)
a muscle whose contraction moves a limb or other part of the body toward the midline of the body or toward another part.
MD - ADDuct - you’re adding a limb or body part to the midline
oyster tightening it’s adductor muscle is adding the shells to the midline. if it had an abdductor muscle it could subtract the shells from the midline by opening them up.
Crassostrea virginica
The eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) — also called Atlantic oyster, Virginia oyster, or American oyster — is a species of true oyster native to the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico coast of North America. It is also farmed in Puget Sound, Washington, where it is known as the Totten Inlet Virginica
MD - CrassosTRea - TRea - true oyster. Think of the american oyster as crass as many eruopeans thought americans to be. Though they were crass, their oysters were the best in the world.
adductor muscle (oyster)
A prominent organ situated in the posterior region of the oyster body, consisting of an anterior translucent part and a smaller, white crescent-shaped region. It functions to close the oyster shells (relaxation of the adductor muscle allows the shells to gape open).
“The small adductor muscle that holds the shells closed on a living oyster exerts about twenty-two pounds of pressure.”
MD - add - by contracting the oyster adds the shell to the midline
Ostreidae
Family which includes most species of molluscs commonly consumed as oysters.
MD - Ostreidae not Pteriidae
Ostreidae you make an o with your mouth to consume. Pteriidae you make a p becasuse the oysters make pearls.
Mollusca
an invertebrate of a large phylum which includes snails, slugs, mussels, and octopuses. They have a soft unsegmented body and live in aquatic or damp habitats, and most kinds have an external calcareous shell.
Phylum Mollusca: several classes, in particular Gastropoda, Bivalvia, and Cephalopoda.
MD - Moll sounds like muscle. Picture a mall lusg - picture a slug at the mall, it’s buying a shell so that it can be snail from a muscular octopus that can take money from mutliple customers.
shell middens
Large piles of oyster shells left behind by ancient civilizations.
“We know that the Lenape at copious quantities of oysters because oyster shells last a very long time and they left behind tremendous piles of them.” (11)
midden - dung hill normally, but with shell it’s a shell hill
MD no one wants to be in the MIDDle of a dog pile nor a shell MIDDen .
delicacy
n. something delightful or pleasing, especially a choice food considered with regard to its rarity, costliness, or the like.
“But it seems in the case of the prehistoric occupants of the lower hudson, exactly as did all of their successors, they supllemented their diets with oysters as a delicacy, a gastronomic treat that was eaten purely for the pleasure of it.”
MD - delicate people appreciate delicacies
Pteriidae
n. the family that contains pearl oysters some of which are important economically as the source of saltwater pearls.
“….the pearl oyster, which is most commonly found in tropical waters, belongs to the family Pteridae, and not the family Ostreidae.” (29)
MD - Pter - Pearl
nacre (mother of pearl)
noun
a smooth iridescent substance forming the inner layer of the shell of some mollusks, esp. oysters and abalones, used in ornamentation.
“A number of animals in this family have the characteristic that if an indigestible food particle-not a grain of sand, as is commonly believed-gets trapped in the shell, the animal will build up a coating of a calcium-carbonate crystal called argonite and a protein, conchiolin, the two materials it uses to build its shell. These two ingredients, in surrounding the particle, becom nacre or mother-of-pearl.”
md - Nacre” think naked body of the oyster, the material has to be smooth an iredescent to please the oyster when it’s cooped up in it’s shell. it’s like a lava lamp.
nacre - nACre argonite and calcium carbonite
foot (oyster)
n. the larvae utilize an appendage that they grow called a foot . This foot helps them crawl around on the bottom to find a suitable substrate for them to attach to.
“Pearl oysters attach to objects by extending threads, the way a mussel does, and not by secreting a subtance from a foot, the way a true oyster does.” (30)
MD - FOysterOTemporary
iredescent
showing luminous colors that seem to change when seen from different angles.
