Fish Schtick: A Simple, Humorous Guide to the Secrets of Fish and Seafood

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Happy customers of the Old Fish Market restaurants (in Toronto, Windsor,
and Ottawa) will enjoy this chatty collection of recipes for dishes
featured at the restaurants. For people who are expecting a basic fish
cookbook, it’s a poor choice. Once you’ve read the title, you’ve
had the humorous course—unless labeling a custard recipe “red
herring” could be considered humorous. Sometimes you just can’t
believe subtitles.

The book is fairly informative, if not inspired, on the skills of
selecting, descaling, filleting, and cooking fish and shellfish. There
are recipes for appetizers, soups, stews, salads, entreés, and sauces.
And one custard recipe. Oyster stew, tuna lasagna, crab cakes, garlic
shrimp, fish pie, and gravlax are among the more tempting choices. While
these are fine, there’s nothing outstanding or special. Nothing to
make the collection memorable.

The book is very poorly designed: cluttered and busy with boxes,
screens, meaningless illustrations, distracting squiggles, and a real
zoo of type styles. No thought was given to how anyone would actually
use the book in the kitchen. If you can get the book to stay open to the
recipe you wish to try, the next challenge is turning pages while both
hands are busy with the fish. The recipes are okay, but there are better
fish cookbooks to be had.