(3 of 4)
A different kettle of poissons, drawn from dozens of national cuisines, is Ruth A. Spear's Cooking Fish and Shellfish (Doubleday; $16.95). The theme of her book is "taking fish seriously," which steak-and-tater Yankees seldom do, even on the seacoasts. Americans are blessed with a biblical abundance of seafood; some 200 varieties pass through Manhattan's Fulton Fish Market. They range from the eel (Anguilla rostrata), much prized by Mediterranean diners, to squid, abalone, Boston scrod, the sadly underrated pike and San Francisco Dungeness crab. American oysters—notably Lynnhavens, Bluepoints, Chincoteagues and the Pacific Olympias—are as delicious and nutritious as any that Roman emperors had shipped from England packed in snow. (Louis XI ordered his advisers to eat this bivalve regularly as "brain food.") Though it is as expensive as beefsteak today, seafood can be stretched in astonishing ways, and Spear prescribes 29 fish soups and stews that elongate budgets while widening nostrils. For the more extravagant, two of her finny finest: shrimp with melon in kirsch, and the New Orleans oyster loaf known as la Médiatrice, which errant husbands used to bring home to placate spouses after a night on the town.
One of the most successful ways to mollify a ms. or missus is, of course, to take her out to dinner and leave the cookbooks at home. In Manhattan, the greatest repository of restaurants in the world, there is a special place whose very atmosphere is as heady as champagne. It is The Four Seasons, whose owners and chef have published a treasury of their most prized and coveted preparations. Rumanian-born Tom Margittai and his Hungarian partner, Paul Kovi, took over the restaurant in 1973, at a time when the décor far outdazzled the dishes.
Sensing Americans' growing interest in food and wine, they decided to recast their menus to emphasize "the best and freshest seasonal foods" and, rather than pay slavish obeisance to Continental cuisine, create food in an American idiom. In this, with Swiss Chef Josef ("Seppi") Renggli, they have succeeded admirably; their prize recipes bloom in all of The Four Seasons (Simon & Schuster; $24.95). Unlike many books by more celebrated restaurateurs, The Four Seasons trio present their recipes, and raisons d'être, in succinct and practical form. Elevating basic family dishes to haute cuisine, their prescriptions range from the basic soufflé and chicken pot pie to such palate pleasers as cold peach soup, filet of pompano with citrus fruits and pistachio nuts, and filet of veal with crabmeat and wild mushrooms —capped perhaps with a topless chocolate cake or a walnut tart.