One Fish, Two Fish, Crawfish, Bluefish: The Smithsonian Sustainable Seafood Cookbook

Rating:
Summary: Slow Food Cooking prevealent in today's modern restaurants
Review: Aside from not having glossy embossed photos to drool over, this book is a wonderful collection of recipes from some of the countries best chefs. What I really love is that the book dives into sustainable aquaculture and what you can do as a consumer to demand better quality local seafood that is not harmful to the environment. Here are 150 recipes that deal with what actually swims in our backyards. It's time we supported restaurants who put such an effort into Slow Food (that is food that is environmentally, physiologically, and mentally the opposite of fast food like McDonalds). I say congratulations to the authors for putting such an effort together.

Rating:
Summary: Good Concept, but Disappointing
Review: I love the IDEA of this book -- what seafood is eco-friendly and how to cook it. The book contains numerous short essays about poor fisheries-management and suggestions about less harmful practices, and these are nice. But in terms of practical advice on fish-buying, the authors are trying to avoid all negativity and don't help the reader distinguish truth from fiction at the fish-mongers. And some of the fish varieties discussed can only be distinguished from look-alikes by DNA testing. Also, the recipes are all very fancy and beautiful but way too fussy (how many words does it take to say "salt and pepper"?) Overall, the book is an expensive indulgence (think coffee-table), but not too useful.

Rating:
Summary: Good Fish vs. Bad Fish
Review: I'm a huge fish fan but find it confusing to know which fish are environmentally safe to eat. My grocers aren't much help and most recipes I find in magazines and books don' t mention whether the seafood ingredients called for are an eco-friendly choice. I was thrilled to find this book for several reasons.

Each chapter is devoted to a certain type of fish such as crab, basses and perch, prawns and shrimp as well as a host of species I had never heard of. Within each chapter is a "how to shop for" guide, cooking methods, and other common names the fish might go by in your local grocery store. Then you've got some great sounding recipes from numerous well-respected chefs. While some of the recipes look a little more complicated than I'm used to, most look easy enough to pull-off at home wihtout buying loads of special ingredients. I like how they throw in a comprehensive glossary to help out with all the cooking terminology. Really, the only downside is the lack of photos. While the illustrations are good, I personally like to see what a finished dish looks like.

The environmental info is easy to read -- not at all preachy (which is refreshing) and the issues section is helpful in understanding what overfishing is all about. I had no idea that up to 100 pounds of by-catch can be discarded for every pound of targeted seafood caught. The authors numbers are really eye-opening.

As far as I can tell, this is the only book on the market that combines the issue of sustainable seafood with actual recipes. Seeing so many great chefs come together for this cause is heartening and I definitely recommend this book for any seafood lover.