Review
In this whirlwind, worldwide tour of fisheries, Grescoe (The Devil's Picnic) whiplashes readers from ecological devastation to edible ecstasy and back again. In disturbing detail, he depicts the turbid and murky Chesapeake Bay, where, with overharvested oysters too few to do their filtering job, fish are infested with the cell from hell, a micro-organism that eats their flesh and exposes their guts. He describes how Indian shrimp farms treated with pesticides, antibiotics and diesel oil are destroying protective mangroves, ecosystems and villages, and portrays the fate of sharks--a collapsing fishery--finned for the Chinese delicacy shark-fin soup: living sharks have their pectoral and dorsal fins cut from their bodies with heated metal blades.... The sharks are kicked back into the ocean, alive and bleeding; it can take them days to die. But these horrific scenes are interspersed with delectable meals of succulent Portuguese sardines with fat-jeweled juices or a luscious breakfast of bluefin tuna sashimi, cool and moist... halfway between a demi-sel Breton butter and an unctuous steak tartare; the latter is a dish that, due to the fish's endangered status, Grescoe decides he won't enjoy again. The book ends on a cautiously optimistic note: scientists know what steps are needed to save the fisheries and the ocean; we just need the political will to follow through. Grescoe provides a helpful list of which fish to eat: no, never, depends, sometimes and absolutely, always. (May) --
Publisher's Weekly
Book Description
Taras Grescoe has gone fishing in the world's oceans and rivers, and he's caught a big one - several of them in fact. In his epicurean and ethically driven quest for the perfect seafood dish, Grescoe nets some shocking discoveries about the fish we eat, where they come from and the often slimy inner workings of the multi-billion dollar industry that depends on them. Bottomfeeder is designed, menu-style, as an account of Grescoe's globe-trotting, seafood-eating journey. He takes us from the familiar - a deep-fried visit to a Red Lobster franchise in North Carolina, where he chows down on popcorn-battered shrimp laced with chemicals, imported as local Gulf shrimp trawlers sat idle - to the foreign, such as a stay in Kochi, India, where Grescoe discovers how the curry-simmered fish and prawns he is enjoying have actually contributed to unprecedented ecological and social devastation, including playing a role in the 2005 tsunami disaster. Along the way, in a fork-to-fishing-line discourse, he tours the world's largest fish market with a marine biologist, takes celebrity chefs to task for putting threatened species on the menu and partakes in a few once-in-a-lifetime meals guaranteed to shock - and even kill - the palate. Much more than a screed against an often slippery fishing industry, however, Bottomfeeder is a food lover's highly entertaining and provocative delight, written by an intrepid adventurer who loves to dish on what's delicious, exciting and ethically digestible.
