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Oyster fanatics, this is your year. Assuming, that is, that you like to read about the fabled bivalves as much as eat them.

In what might be called a publishing-industry coincidence, 2007 will see at least five significant new books on the genus Ostrea.

Already, 2007 has seen the release of Consider the Oyster by Canadian restaurateur and champion shucker Patrick McMurray, A Geography of Oysters by American journalist Rowan Jacobsen and The Hog Island Oyster Lover's Cookbook from the eponymous Tomales Bay, Calif., shellfish supplier. Expected soon is the much-anticipated recipe collection The Union Oyster House Cookbook from the historic Boston shellfish emporium, famously frequented by John F. Kennedy. Also forthcoming is the provocatively titled Sex, Death & Oysters, a cultural study of oyster harvesting, by Texas-based food writer Robb Walsh.

"You have never seen, in modern-day history, a food item focused on the way the oyster has been focused on in 2007," said Brent Petkau, a prominent grower on British Columbia's Cortes Island who operates under the company name Oyster Man. "The five books would all be worthy of winning a James Beard award for writing," he added, referring to the respected U.S. food writing competition.

Mr. Petkau, who harvests 250,000 oysters a year off the eastern shore of central Vancouver Island, sells much of his gnarly-shelled bounty directly to the best restaurants in Calgary and Toronto, including Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar and Rodney's Oyster House, both in the latter city. And he says business for his premium-priced products has never been better.

Indeed, the book flurry is not a coincidence at all. Oysters - specifically raw oysters, served live on the half-shell - are reaching a level of popularity in North America not seen since a century ago, when low prices and abundance made them a middle- and lower-class staple in coastal regions.

According to the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association, harvests have been constant for at least 10 years.

But most oysters that had been shucked at shore and sold off for pennies apiece to the jarred and canned "meat" industry a decade ago are now finding their way to new, fashionable raw bars across the land at $2.50 to $4 a gulp.

"It's completely flipped," said Robin Downey, executive director of the PCGSA in Port Townsend, Wash., just south of Vancouver. "About 75 per cent of oysters were going into the jarred-meat market, and now 75 per cent go to oyster bars."

Credit a number of factors, not least the popularity of raw fish generally, thanks to the sushi invasion, as well as the rise of extreme-dining tendencies, such as the raw-food fad that emerged in the 1990s. Oyster cognoscenti point to a less-obvious reason for today's oystermania. The bivalves, they say, are riding the wave of wine appreciation. To know your oysters is to know the telltale flavours of each variety depending on where it is grown. In wine, the French call the concept terroir, after the French word for soil or land. Taking their cue from that world, oyster connoisseurs have begun speaking of meroir, a made-up word based on mer, the French word for sea.

Then there's the supply boom. Oyster aquaculture has taken great strides over the past 10 to 20 years, says Mr. Jacobsen, the author of A Geography of Oysters. For example, scientists have developed ways to plant seed oysters on hanging nets instead of on rocks near shore in shallow tidal pools, greatly expanding the available farming real estate.

And oysters farmers are delivering more variety. Prince Edward Island, which produces 80 per cent of eastern Canada's oysters, is currently producing about 10 different types. Its oyster landings also have more than doubled since the 1980s, from 3 million pounds to more than 7 million.

Although there are five species cultivated in North America, the number of branded varieties is far greater because each species develops unique shape and flavour characteristics based on where it's grown.

Mr. Jacobsen is particularly fond of PEI's famous Colville Bay variety, distinguished by its green-tinged shell and what Mr. Jacobsen describes as a classic, briny oyster flavour with a "floral-lemony" quality. "We can't get them in the United States. I have a couple of friends who have houses up in PEI and they bring me back Colville Bays."

Unlike with many other prized and expensive sea products, oyster farming also is seen as completely sustainable and even environmentally virtuous. In part that's because even so-called farmed oysters are in fact technically wild, neither penned (once spawned, they quickly fasten to each other or to rocks and never again move) nor artificially fed. Oysters feed naturally, off microscopic plankton, sucking and filtering sea water through their slightly parted shells.

"You don't have to feed or give antibiotics to oysters," Mr. Jacobsen said. "You just leave them."

Safety remains a concern for some people, but Mr. Jacobsen says that if you steer clear of oysters in summer months, when refrigeration can be compromised, "basically you're safe everywhere, and especially in the northern waters."

(Incidentally, the so-called R rule, stating that one should eat oysters only in months containing an "r," beginning with the month of September, had to do with protecting the oyster, not humans. Oysters spawn from June to August and should be left alone to reproduce in order to sustain the population.)

Another attractive trait oysters share with premium wine, at least as far as restaurateurs are concerned, is profitability.

"Oysters aren't filling at all but they tend to be kind of pricey," Mr. Jacobsen noted. "So, people go into a restaurant, they have a dozen or two dozen oysters and a bottle of wine and they're down 50 to 100 bucks and they still haven't gotten to their appetizer. So, it's a great way for restaurateurs to jack the bill up. I think that's part of the attraction."

How to chase an oyster

The best wines for oysters are all white. Rowan Jacobsen, author of the new book A Geography of Oysters, favours different wines with different oysters.

For melon-like Kumamotos, he likes fruity-zesty New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. And for Pacific oysters, more subtle sauvignon blancs from the United States or France (such as Sancerre from the Loire Valley), work nicely. But with Eastern oysters, he favours the great dry white wine of Austria, gruner veltliner, because of its minerality and electric acidity.

A classic choice, and particularly good with Eastern Canadian varieties such as Beausoleils from New Brunswick and Malpeques from PEI, is Champagne - the drier the better.

Mr. Jacobsen's other, more offbeat recommendations: A dry martini works better than wine all around; Campari and soda with a slice of orange; cold Budweiser; sake, the Japanese rice wine; and Perrier. ("Divine," he says).

Beppi Crosariol

Inside the shell

There are five oyster species cultivated commercially in North America: Eastern, Pacific, Kumamoto, European Flat and Olympia. Like wine grapes, they are often referred to in restaurants by the more specific geographic names, reflecting the uniqueness of the local sea conditions that strongly affect flavour, size and even shell colour.

Here are a few popular oysters you might want to get acquainted with:

Belon

Also called European Flat, bold and strongly metallic, not for beginners.

Colville Bay

A prized PEI variety, light and briny, with a floral-lemon hint.

Kumamoto

Imported from Japan and grown along the U.S. West coast, melon-scented, sweet, firm and not at all bitter.

Moonstone

From Rhode Island, salty, with stone and iron flavours.

Nootka Sound

From the western shore of Vancouver Island, strong-tasting, with hints of muskmelon and slightly sweet raw milk.

Olympia

The native West Coast oyster, now grown only in Washington, small and hard to open, redolent of morels, butter and celery salt.

Source: A Geography of Oysters, Rowan Jacobsen

Beppi Crosariol