Books
North Atlantic Seafood: A Comprehensive Guide with Recipes by Alan Davidson
By Matthew Christian
One day in the hot summer of 1991, I climbed into a rowboat with my brother and two childhood friends. We were in Terence Bay, Nova Scotia, and the prospect of doing an hour’s aimless ocean fishing appealed to the four of us. When something took the hook ten minutes into our trip we were more surprised then happy, especially when the monstrous thing proved too heavy to haul aboard. We pulled shoreward, tugging the line behind us. The beast we eventually dragged ashore gulped and burped on the beach. It was hideous. Dark eyes flared malevolently at us as the demon-fish flared its spiny fins. We snapped a quick picture and pushed the thing back into the water with an oar, careful to stay away from what we were sure were its poisonous spines. Fourteen years later, having read Alan Davidson’s North Atlantic Seafood, I would not have been so hasty.
I would have known, for example, that the liver of the sculpin (Myoxocephalus scorpius, the fish I think we caught) is particularly prized by the Greenlanders, who cook the rest of the fish as they would a cod. I would have known that the Finns consider its roe an expensive delicacy, and that James Beard himself wrote “I’m sure that if you try it you will find it an excellent food fish.”
Co-founder of the prestigious food journal Petit Propos Culinaires, Alan Davidson became one of the world’s most well-respected food historians and writers following his retirement from the British diplomatic corps in 1975. First published in 1979 and issued in its current edition in 2003, North Atlantic Seafood can only be described as a culinary-historical bestiary, and would certainly be the only book of its type if Davidson had not also published Mediterranean Seafood and Seafood of South-East Asia.
The book opens with a catalogue that includes nearly every species of edible fish or shellfish found in the North Atlantic. It is organized taxonomically, arranged according to the rules set out by Carl Linneaeus in the 18th century, which means that it begins with the fish of the herring family—fortunately for us, because according to Davidson “The Order Clupeiformes, which comprises the herring family and its relations, constitutes what is probably the most important group of food fish in the world.”
Each fish is identified by its scientific name as well as the common names given to it in the language of every country that fishes for and eats it. A line drawing, consciously borrowed from a variety of sources, is also included, and is followed by some remarks on the creature’s appearance, range, habitat, and the various ways and places that it is caught. The entry concludes with “Cuisine and Recipes,” a description of the way the fish is prepared and eaten in Russia, Finland, Portugal, Canada, or wherever else it might be prized and enjoyed.
These recipes are collected together at the end of the book where they are arranged by country and given in detail. Davidson begins in Portugal, works his way up the Atlantic coast to Germany, spins counter-clockwise around the Baltic sea then sets out across the North Atlantic route taken by the Vikings to North America. The recipes—at least some of them—are unlikely to appeal to modern home cooks. “Clean 6 red mullet” begins the recipe for Salmonetes Grelhados Setubalense. I for one will not be serving Estonian Herring and Meat Salad to guests, with or without a zakuska or light salad. A recipe for Anjovismunahyydkye, Finnish anchovy and egg custard, will interest only the most patriotic Finn, who has probably cooked it already. Collected together, however, these represent the life’s work of a man so devoted to the cooking of fish that my own poor attempts with salmon filets make me hang my head in shame.
On a recent trip to Portugal, I saw a tray of sculpin at Lisbon's Mercado da Ribiera. Each one much smaller than the monster of my memory, the whole mass writhed slowly together as the fish gulped for air. The fishmonger laughed when she saw my mother jump back in surprise and grab my arm. It was not by accident that Davidson began his discussion of fish cookery with the recipes of Portugal. Any culture that can see beyond the surface ugliness of the sculpin, or the scabbard-fish for that matter (Lepidopus caudatus, recipe on page 270), to find the interior culinary beauty of such a fish deserves to be celebrated.
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