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Our relationship with the ocean is undergoing a profound transformation. Whereas just three decades ago nearly everything we ate from the sea was wild, rampant overfishing combined with an unprecedented bio tech revolution has brought us to a point where wild and farmed fish occupy equal parts of a complex and confusing marketplace. We stand at the edge of a cataclysm there is a distinct possibility that our children's children will never eat a wild fish that has swum freely in the sea. In Four Fish award winning writer and lifelong fisherman Paul Greenberg takes us on a culinary journey, exploring the history of the fish that dominate our menus salmon, sea bass, cod and tuna and examining where each stands at this critical moment in time.
He visits Norwegian mega farms that use genetic techniques once pioneered on sheep to grow millions of pounds of salmon a year. He travels to the ancestral river of the Yupik Eskimos to see the only Fair Trade certified fishing company in the world. He investigates the way PCBs and mercury find their way into seafood discovers how Mediterranean sea bass went global Challenges the author of Cod to taste the difference between a farmed and a wild cod and almost sinks to the bottom of the South Pacific while searching for an alternative to endangered bluefin tuna.
Fish, Greenberg reveals, are the last truly wild food for now. By examining the forces that get fish to our dinner tables, he shows how we can start to heal the oceans and fight for a world where healthy and sustainable seafood is the rule rather than the exception.
"Finally we have learned that food is best when produced on a small scale in accordance with the rhythms of our planet. Paul Greenberg's warm and witty Four Fish takes this concept to the ocean. Seafood deserves the same kind of respect and political awareness as food from the land. Maybe more." -Alice Waters
"Four Fish is not only the best analysis I've seen of the current state of both wild and farmed fish it's a terrificread." -Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything and Food Matters
"We are lucky to have the exceptional journalist and writer Paul Greenberg turn his attention to one of the greatest threats to our food supply, the depletion of the world's fisheries. By deftly drawing together the strands of a pressing global crisis, Greenberg will change the way you think about the fish you eat." -Amanda Hesser, New York Times food columnist and a founder of food52.com
"If you've ever ordered salmon, if you've ever slurped a bowl of chowder, if you've ever sat down for sushi, Paul Greenberg's friendly and thoughtful book will lure you in, surprise you, probably shock you, and certainly make you think...Read this book." -Trevor Corson, bestselling author of The Secret Life of Lobsters and The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice
