Poissonnerie: Leçons en Pas à Pas

This is an impressively explicit technique guide to handling fish and shellfish as they would be in a modern French restaurant kitchen. The author is a Parisian fishmonger who has been awarded Meilleur Ouvrier de France, a coveted recognition of his professional skills.

The comprehensive nature of this book makes us wish very, very hard that it will see an English translation, but for the moment it is only available in French.

The focus is on seafood which is caught in European waters, and the book devotes its first 200 pages to the step-by-step butchering of these creatures, from anchovies to octopus. The recipes in the following section are similarly explicit, demonstrating slicing filets thinly for carpaccio, shucking oysters, and even the preparation of bouillabaisse and langoustine souffle.

While it is not boldly innovative, Poissonnerie: Leçons en Pas à Pas is thorough and proficient in the way any well-executed reference work should be.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout. In French.

Please note that, mysteriously for a work of this type, the publisher has not provided us with any interior photographs, so those that appear here are taken in our store with our own limited set-up. As such they do not fully reflect the quality of what you will find in the book.