Free The Human Age by Diane Ackerman Page B

nourishing. The oysters, mussels, and scallops provide low-fat protein and all sorts of important vitamins: selenium, zinc, magnesium, iron, B vitamins, omega-3s. We’ve analyzed the sea vegetables—different forms of algae like kelp—and they create lots of vitamins and minerals and nine different amino acids, plus omega-3s. Could you actually have something called ‘ocean vegetarianism’? I think so. During World War II, both the Germans and the British came up with this plan to dealwith starvation, which they thought was going to be a huge risk in World War II, and actually they did all these studies and began feeding people algae. There’s also some modern research that if you created a network of small seaweed farms around the world that added up to the size of Washington State, you could feed the whole world. Now, you’re not going to get everyone to eat seaweed, but it shows the potential that’s there.
    “This is Mookie ,” he says, as we pull up to his cobalt-blue fishing boat with a sky-blue cabin door and a white deck sole that must once have matched. Thanks to the rubbing of boots, cages, ropes, and splintery dock, a trifle of paint has worn away to reveal a thin deckle-edge of sky blue.
    We climb aboard, hoist anchor, and chug to his patch of ocean, a flowing field dark as gravy. Small gobs of sea spit trail the boat. Gray-and-white herring gulls spiral above, following us as they would any large predator, their yellow eyes hunting for small fish churned up to the surface.
    Dropping anchor, we winch up a heavy cage and swing it carefully onto a built-in wooden bench. The cold breeze, snorting and blowing, is full of turning knives. I’m glad of the heavy worksuit, but it’s cumbersome and my movements feel moonwalk slow.
    Bren pops the lid to reveal a vault of about three hundred oysters and a mix of sea creatures, including starfish, small fronds of orange algae, and a necklace of round off-white periwinkle egg capsules that look like buttons of horn or coral.
    “Look at this,” he says, slicing an egg open with his teeth and extracting tiny seeds on the tip of a knife blade. “They’re snail eggs, and they actually look like miniature snails.”
    Amazingly, they do. Periwinkles, flavorful sea snails, have been part of English, Irish, Asian, and African cuisine for millennia. Clinging to rocks (or oyster cages) to steady themselves, they feed on phytoplankton. But these freeloaders aren’t welcome among the oysters. Nor is the squishy round sea squirt, or the translucent segmented mantis shrimp, or the cascade of olive-green sea grapes, orthe broken shells. Back they all return to the sea, except for the mass of tiny open-jawed barnacles encrusting the mesh cages. Those have mortared themselves in place and will have to wait to sink with the oysters.
    Gulls swim through the sky as we pour the oysters into shallow bins on a wooden table. Our job today is to “rough up” the oysters—not injure, but stress them so that they’ll form tougher shells. Much as muscles build if you exercise them, oysters thicken their shells when tossed by the tide. Idle oysters need exercise, just as idle humans do. Without struggle, strength won’t grow. The human parallel plays with my mind; then the cold blows the thought away, and I reach for a pair of rubber gloves.
    “Knead them like bread,” Bren says, showing me how.
    Catching a dozen or so in my open fingers, I roll them forward with the base of my palms, then claw them back gently and repeat the undulating motion. I have become the tide.
    “We touch them every five weeks,” he explains, “to make sure they’ll grow strong.”
    “It sounds like you feel pretty close to them.”
    “They’re like family. I plant them, I’m with them for two years, watch them grow, touch them regularly. I know every oyster personally.”
    “By name?”
    He laughs. “Not quite. Not yet .”
    “They’re really beautiful.” I pause to pick up one of the Thimble