Feature: The Fishmongers Apprentice
Are you wondering how to …
1. Bone the notoriously complicated shad?
2. Put that leftover squid ink sac to good use?
3. Prepare fish cheeks?*
[sidebar]The Fishmonger’s Apprentice ($24.99, Quarry Books), Elkins Park-based chef Aliza Green’s extensive new seafood bible, has the answers (see below). Green’s tenth cookbook took her from the Atlantic to the Pacific and beyond, where she interviewed the masters for tips on how to choose, clean and cook seafood. But her biggest resource was right here in town: Samuels & Son, one of the mid-Atlantic region’s largest and most respected seafood wholesalers, played a major part in the book’s production. Its state-of-the-art facility in South Philly was the staging ground for Green’s research; the company ordered her hard-to-come-by products like sea urchin, while owner (and fourth-generation fishmonger) Samuel D’Angelo served as her behind-the-scenes adviser. Another Philly master has a crustaceous cameo: Mollusk maven David Mink of Oyster House gives the lowdown on shucking in the oyster chapter.
