Go Fish

REVIEW: Aliza Green's The Fishmonger's Apprentice

by Drew Lazor

There's a delightful Philly-centric current running though The Fishmonger's Apprentice (Quarry Books, Jan. 1), a dense and downright engrossing tool that should appeal to hardcore home filleters, or even just the casually fin-curious.

Author and chef Aliza Green, noted for her work in the Inquirer and her numerous cookbooks on top of her behind-the-line contributions to Philly's original restaurant renaissance, brings several local culinary luminaries to the table here, including photographer Steve Legato, Oyster House's David Mink and Samuel D'Angelo of wholesaler Samuels & Son, who pens the foreword. The familiar names augment a book that combines education and practical technique with deep veins of industry-insider insight.

Apprentice starts off small — explaining how to select the best whole fish, how to store it and how to keep it safe to consume — and builds from there, combining seafood techniques useful in everyday cooking (removing pinbones, cleaning squid) with those that might be applicable only on pro prep tables or in ambitious home kitchens. (Would you like to know how to slice up a live geoduck, or break down a swordfish collar bigger than your dog? Here's how!) Accompanying Green's step-by-steps are dozens of Legato's crisp, gorgeous full-color shots.

Though this guide is largely instructional ("Select a lively lobster that wiggles its claws, trying its best to grab onto you"), Green breaks up her didactic sections with interesting Q&A features highlighting the personalities behind the curtain. Oyster House's Mink reveals the ordering and storing process behind his restaurant's bivalves. Michael McNicholas, who works quality control for Japanese superfreezer Uoriki Fresh, breaks down the dangers of treating fish with carbon monoxide to help it maintain its luster (the practice is illegal pretty much everywhere — except the United States).

Brooks Takenaka, who runs the large-scale United Fishing Agency seafood auction in Hawaii, elaborates on the eating traditions of his home state, where residents consume seafood at a rate of three times the national average. Chris Leftwich, chief inspector of the delightfully named Worshipful Company of Fishmongers', discusses the challenges of overseeing Billingsgate Market, the largest inland fish hub in all of the U.K. These insights make Green's book much more than a cut-and-dried technical resource.

(drew.lazor@citypaper.net)