Product Description

More than just a cookbook, this beautifully produced volume in three parts promotes a total understanding of British fish, from their natural habitats to what sauce they go best with to how to respect their seasonality, in keeping with the River Cottage ethos. The first part is dedicated to understanding fish - Hugh and Nick explain the ins and outs of procuring a good fish, discussing fish farming, aquaculture, sustainability and harvesting issues, how to buy and catch fish in an ethical way, and how to prepare it for the kitchen. Next they open up a whole world of fish cooking - pickling, salting, barbecuing, frying, potting, stewing, smoking and more are explained in depth, each technique followed by classic recipes from gravadlax to kedgeree, from sashimi to chip shop battered cod. Finally, Hugh and Nick present Britain's best fish by species, giving portraits with notes on seasonality and ecology, as well as listing the relevant recipes from part 2 with alternatives. "The River Cottage Fish Book" is the only book on fish that the adventurous fish lover will ever need.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2483 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 608 pages

Financial Times
Does for marine life what his Meat Book did for our four-legged and feathered friends... with dozens of fine recipes.

Spectator
Simply the best and most comprehensive work on the subject I have read... a well-illustrated compendium to British fish, it is a great reference book and a good read.

Evening Standard
I wish the words `definitive' and `authoritative' weren;t so overworked, because they really do sum up this wonderful, entertaining book.

Customer Reviews

The best fish cookery books are written by fishermen..
...and fishmongers. My favourite fish cookery books so far have been from Sophie Grigson and William Black, Philip Diamond, Mitchell Tonks and Alan Davidson. All really know their fish because they get out there and catch them, or deal with fresh fish for a living. Now Hugh and Nick join that select band of my favourite fishy authors for the same reason - they know and love fish, from the bottom of the sea to the plate. They write informatively, humorously and passionately, and the reader can't help wanting to pick up a rod or net and get involved. Don't expect fussy recipes: these are best cooked in a farmhouse kitchen or a fishing boat galley, and eaten with your fingers. But they will taste fabulous. Don't expect too many recipes for boring old cod or salmon either, as Hugh and Nick explore nearly all British edible species that swim or crawl. This is a big book, and hugely readable. The authors are both very passionate about sustainable fishing, and offer useful tips to help conserve the more pressurised species, and provide every reason to try alternatives that are right on our doorstep. Buy this book, you will not regret it.

A thorough trawl
The first thing I couldn't help noticing about The River Cottage FISH book is how big and heavy it is - definitely not a book to take on a fishing trip but then that was probably never its intention.

Written by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and the appropriately-named Nick Fisher, they have a clear view of its "nitty gritty". Apart from the "delightful activity of cooking and eating fish", FISH is about understanding the business of catching and preparing them. Once we readers achieve this we will, perforce, get even more pleasure.

Golly, FISH is comprehensive. One of its three sections, Understanding Fish, is divided into Fish as food; Sourcing fish; Fish skills; Shellfish skills. Within these, the authors deal with such diverse topics as Fish as brain food; Five rules for sustainable fish shopping; Fish to find; Fish to avoid; Fish prep kit...... and so on. A thorough trawl.

Recipes are a real catch. Helpfully grouped under such headings as Raw, salted and marinated; Baked and grilled; Fish thrift and standbys (for maximising ingredients and minimising waste) they cleverly organise you into deciding what - and how - you might want to cook. They're also extremely alluring - Simon Wheeler's photos see to that - and make you want to rush out, buy (from a sustainable source naturally) and cook. Roll on summer for a burst of Roasted whole plaice with cherry tomatoes. Meanwhile let's be content with FoodLovers featured recipes Crab Bread & Butter Pudding or Drunken Smollack Toasts - a fishy version of Welsh rarebit.

Nice book shame about the index
I looked around before I bought this book - I wanted something that had a lot more to it than the fish sections of general cook books, and I really wanted the sections on choosing fish and basic tchniques.

As you can see from the other reviews, it fits the bill very well

However, I mark it down one star because using it as a cook book is actually quite difficult because of the lack of a proper cross-referenced index showing fish types and recipes. What they do is give you a load of recipes, which are listed under the name of a single fish, but may recommend up to about half a dozen other fish that will work.

Suppose you have a beautiful grey mullet. You look it up in the index and find pretty much zilch. So you turn to grey mullet in the fish directory and hidden in the grey box in the margin are some page numbers which contain recipes suitable for using with grey mullet - but no clue whatsoever as to what any of those recipes might be. So you have to turn to each one in turn to discover what they are. By the time you have done this you've spent half an hour finding out that the recipe you fancy needs an ingredient you don't have and the corner shop closed 10 minutes ago.

Wouldn't have been easier just to list in the index all the recipes under the fish to which they can apply ? And entries for fish steaks and fish fillets while you were at it guys - not all of us cook for 6 all the time, and those of us in small households tend to buy our fish dismantled (PS if you read this guys, look at Rose Elliot's Bean Book for an example of an almost perfect ingredient-led index).