friederike's Reviews
Cookbook Reviews
North Atlantic Seafood: A Comprehensive Guide with Recipes
By Alan Davidson
Ten Speed Press - 2003
What a great informative book! About half of this 500 page book is more or less an excyclopedia of fish and seafood of the North Atlantic. For each fish/seafood some basic information (family, latin name, etc.) is given, as well as it's name in most of the languages of countries bordering on the North Atlantic (think Portugal up to Finland, Poland and 'the Soviet Union', as well as the US, Canada and Iceland). This is followed by a few remarks on appearance, habits and the like, an illustration (black and white drawing), and information on how the fish tastes and how it is used in North Atlantic cuisine, as well as, if applicable, in which recipes the fish is used.
The second half of the book is filled with recipes, sorted by country, along with some details on the respective cuisine and some useful information on seafood in general (how to recognize if fish is fresh etc.). Until now, recipes have been quite reliable, though they tend to be on the complicated side of cooking, and not everything might be explicitly mentioned. Also, there are no pictures in this last part of the book.