friederike's Reviews
Cookbook Reviews
Seafood of South-East Asia: A Comprehensive Guide with Recipes
By Alan Davidson
Ten Speed Press - 2004
What a great informative book! About two thirds of this nearly 400 page book is more or less an excyclopedia of fish and seafood of Southe-East Asia. For each fish/seafood some basic information (family, latin name, etc.) is given, as well as it's name in most of the Asian languages (as well as, obviously, the English one). this is followed by a few remarks on appearance, habits and the like, an illustration (black and white drawing), and information on how the seafood tastes and how it is used in Asian cuisine, as well as, if applicable, in which recipes the seafood is used.
Given that eating habits differ somewhat from what we in the West are used, Davidson also included descriptions of several animals we would find exotic as food, such as several kinds of shark (hammerhead shark, sawfish), sea urchins, sea cucumbers and sea cow, without including recipes.
About the last third 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 of the dishes in this last part of the book.