Shellfish Books

I bought one of the original hardback copies of this book almost 20 years ago. Unfortunately I lent it to someone who had grown up in Burma, and she was fascinated to see recipes for dishes she remembered eating as a child. I never saw the book again, and serve me right! I assumed it was long out of print until I spotted it on amazon.com this evening while ordering another Davidson title, North Atlantic Seafood, as a Christmas gift for a godchild in Houston, Texas.

Sadly, Alan Davidson died in December 2003, and his career was widely reviewed in the British press. He had just won the prestigious Erasmus Prize for his pioneering contributions to the academic study of food and gastronomy. The award was made by the Queen of the Netherlands in person.

His first-ever writings on seafood were published while he was serving as a diplomat in Tunisia, a small work to help diplomatic wives identify local species, and sold to raise funds for the Red Cross. This was later expanded to become Meditterranean Seafood, widely recognized as the authoritive guide to the subject. I live in a small fishing port on the Costa Brava in Spain and use the book at least once a week. It has been invaluable in identifying the often unfamiliar species on sale in the local markets, as in all his works he gives the local names and variants, and provides accurate drawings of each, as well as authentic recipes. These are always those used by traditional cooks of the regions he writes about. No fusion cooking for him!

Seafood of South East Asia, first published in 1976, makes interesting reading even for non-cooks. Davidson had gone on to be British Ambassador in Laos, a country he came to love deeply. He usually wore string wristbands, tokens of a Laotian religious ceremony called basi. These were regularly given to him by the Lao community in the UK, who considered him their patron. The clothes he wore after retiring from the Foreign Office were often inspired by the colourful and stylish garments of south-east Asia. Seafood of South-East Asia reflects his understanding and appreciation of regions whose culinarary traditions are still not widely known.

After retirement from the diplomatic service Davidson travelled widely throughout China and south-east Asia, researching the names and methods used for cooking the entire range of local seafood, including the pa beuk, a giant catfish of the Mekong, thought to be extinct, but now thriving, partly because of his writings about it.

Davidson's recipes are not always easy to follow, as he spurns phrases like 'or use x if y is not available'. He was a culinary perfectionist, although in no way a foodie, admitting as he did to a liking for such unfashionable food items as tomato ketchup, spam and ice cream soda.

His death brings to an end a great trilogy of seafood books that started with the Mediterranean and went on to cover the North Atlantic and South-East Asia. All these books and his other writings on fish are imbued with deep scholarship (he was a top classical scholar at Oxford University) and, surprisingly perhaps, a great sense of humour.

`Seafood of South-East Asia' by noted culinary writer Alan Davidson, the author of `The Oxford Companion to Food' is a reference book which a serious cook must have in their library where time is spent deciding on what to eat rather than time spend actually cooking. This book belongs to a rare breed of books in English such as Elizabeth Schneider's `Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini' or `Bruce Cost's Asian Ingredients' which thoroughly cover a broad single subject. This volume is cut from exactly the same cloth and sewn with an almost identical pattern to the author's two other classics, `Mediterranean Seafood' and `North Atlantic Seafood'.

All three books are organized in the same way that gives primacy to information on the aquatic species and secondary coverage of recipes.

Biological family, genus, and species organize the first part on the catalog of species in order that the biological similarity of the fishes is clearly shown. Each article gives the most common English name, the two part Latin scientific name, the scientist who assigned this name (most commonly the great inventor of biological Taxonomy, Linnaeus), the biological family name, and the common name of the fish in virtually every language of the major fishing nationality bordering the relevant body of water. This Southeast Asian volume includes names found in the languages of United Arab Emirates, Bengal, Tamil, Singhalese, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and Japan. I have not seen any differentiation between the different languages of, for example, China and the Philippines. I would guess that Chinese names are in Cantonese and the Philippine names are in Tagalog. These names in themselves are entertaining to the linguistically inclined, as it is interesting to see the similarities and differences from country to country.

The articles on every species also have a highly detailed black and white drawing of each animal. The great value to these is that it makes comparing the appearance of different fishes very easy, as every species is depicted in a similar style. It is too bad they could not be depicted to scale, but this would have had the sturgeon filling two pages while the anchovies would be the size of a period. Instead, the remarks on each fish give the average market length and a description of the typical color and markings.

The catalog entry also gives a paragraph or two on cuisine, which is a discussion of the culinary desirability of the species and typical ways in which the animal is prepared. For most fish, this includes methods by which the fish is butchered. The catalog entries also include a list of recipes and page numbers for these recipes in the second major section of the book.

The second major section divides recipes by country. This volume gives us eight chapters on recipes from Burma; Thailand; Cambodia; Vietnam; China and Hong Kong; The Philippines; Indonesia; and Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore.

One is tempted to expect these recipes to be very generic and not as interesting as those you may find in books of `haute cuisine' from a fish specialist such as Eric Rippert. This is partially true. Davidson is less the great cook than he is a great fish and food scholar. This means that while his recipes may come from common sources, he gives us much more information on the background of the recipes than the chef may do. A good example of this is in his coverage of Filipino dishes. I compared his `Fish Sinigang' recipe to the `Sinigang Na Bangus' recipe in `Filipino Cuisine' by Gerry Gelle and found that Davidson's recipe was as good or better than the one given by the Filipino chef. True to Davidson's scholarly approach, he describes what type of fish works well in this recipe, even though both he and Gelle specify milkfish (bangos). One odd fact is that Gelle's name for the fish is one Davidson attributes to Malaysia. May be due to linguistic duality between northern and southern Philippines. As with all cuisines, Davidson gives expert advice on cookbooks of the Filipino cuisines, especially as he says cookbook writing is a well-developed discipline in the islands. Icing on the cake is Davidson's overview of Filipino fish cures. One method even looks suspiciously like the famous Caribbean technique that developed into barbecue.

One great delight was the fact that the book includes information on Gasteropods (Snails, limpets, conches, etc), sea turtles, and seaweed. You may not be cooking turtle soup any time soon, but you will know your stuff the next time you watch `Babette's Feast'! My point here is that this book is simply great fun to read and to use as a source of ideas for unusual new recipes.

Unlike the books on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, the bibliography shows that the author has based most of his material on sources written in English or French. While Davidson was a diplomat with serious language skills, either these skills did not extend to oriental languages OR most of the good stuff is written in English and French anyway. One of the greatest things about all these volumes is that all of this great material is available in trade paperbacks, which list for no more than $25. For you devotees of second hand bookstores, please note the author's warning that the first edition of this volume apparently had more than a usual number of errors and all known errors were corrected in the second edition.

These are must have books for devoted foodies! A quick look at the list of species in the table of contents shows that almost all of the common named fishes show up on the ice or in the tanks of your favorite local megamart or fishmonger. I am certain that your Maine lobster will not mind being dressed in a recipe tailored to an Asian spiny lobster, although Alton Brown has quipped that the Maine flesh is slightly sweeter.

Highly recommended.

This beautifully produced cookbook features a wide variety of common and unique shellfish dishes... Some of the best (and acclaimed) recipes are: crown of shrimp in aspic, idonesian shrimp cake, spiced and sauteed soft shell crab, french scallops with saffron, galician lobster, boild beer shrimp, neptune souffle, pear and curry shrimp, specialty whiskey lobster, malaysian coconut prawns, and many more. Truly a wonderful shellfish recipe collection.

This beautifully produced cookbook features a wide variety of common and unique shellfish dishes... Some of the best (and acclaimed) recipes are: crown of shrimp in aspic, idonesian shrimp cake, spiced and sauteed soft shell crab, french scallops with saffron, galician lobster, boild beer shrimp, neptune souffle, pear and curry shrimp, specialty whiskey lobster, malaysian coconut prawns, and many more. Truly a wonderful shellfish recipe collection. (be sure to get the hardbound edition as the paperbound edition has some deletions)

Having been a teenager in the "60's" in the great city of Chicago, one dosen't get a lot of experience fishing. I thought this book to be just what I was looking for. I now reside part time in Florida, and this book tells all. I can almost tell one fish from another. I highly recommend this book for all city people who really don't know the joys of catching and cooking fish. Sheryl, Punta Gorda, Fla. & Mokena Il.

This is a great cookbook if you like fish. So far, I have made about 15 or 20 things out of it, and haven't found one that didn't come out great. I'm definitely not a gourmet cook, but all of the everything in this book that I wanted to make has been pretty easy. Lots of pictures that show you how things should look as you are progressing, as well as the finished product (for every page, not just some) is very helpful.

My mother wrote this book when I was a little girl. I am in the picture on the cover. We were very very poor and this book was going to be our meal ticket. My drug doing loser of a father was always looking for a get rich quick scheme. So my mother, who worked full time to fully support a family of 5, handwrote this book and drew all of the illustrations late nights at the dining room table. I know that it is one of her most prized accomplishments eventhough it wasn't a best seller. The recipes are all from her and her friends and family. I would highly recommend this book to anyone. The recipes are awesome! I am thankful that my mother got to finish this book before he took that away from her too.

I have had this book for several years.It is the most helpful that I have seen on fish and shellfish.It does not have a lot of recipes but the information on the different varieties of seafood and fish makes up for the number of recipes. As a Fisherperson, this book has been great to identify the different methods of cleaning and cooking my catch, whatever it is.I am happy to give it"Five Stars".

The aim of this book is to start a new era in fisheries.It includes recent advantages but less application. This is a must for eugenetics, molecular biology and fisheries.

The brown covers are deeply embossed with a design around the title and a beautiful seahorse. The seahorse and title are painted gold, as well as title on the spine. Pages are slick and thick, slightly cream-colored from age. There is a photograph or illustration on every page, some of the fish in their environment, and some of fishermen, which show a bit of life in the twenties!

There are 134 color illustrations by Hashime Murayama taken from paintings, which are luscious.

The articles are biographies of certain fish and stories of fishing and fishermen.

This is a beautiful rare book, both informative and collectible. Highly recommended for scientists, historians, and folk who love fish.

The Compleat Clammer and The Compleat Crab & Lobster Book are the perfect vacation books this summer.

Like the author of this great book, I love to fish and enjoy preparing my catches for my family and friends. I've had this trusty volume since the mid-80's and still refer to it. It's encyclopedic in scope, covering everything from abalone to eels. I live on the west coast, so most of my experience with the recipes has been with preparing fish found in our waters (tuna, rockfish, shark, swordfish). The recipes in this book go well beyond the basics, yet they are sensible and straightforward to prepare. Using the recipe I found in the book, I made Gravalax Salmon for my family one Christmas after being inspired by a business trip to Sweden; the results were great, and all of the ingredients were things that I already had in my cupboards. This is in contrast to many current cookbooks whose recipes seem to be comprised of a long list of the exotic and hard-to-find. I'd strongly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fish!

I've now tried many of these elegant, creative recipes and they have all turned out great.