This modern pirate yarn has all the makings of a great true adventure tale and is also an exploration of the ways our culinary tastes have all manner of unintended consequences for the world around us.
Hooked is a story about the poaching of the Patagonian toothfish (known to gourmands as Chilean Sea Bass) and is built around the pursuit of the illegal fishing vessel Viarsa by an Australian patrol boat, Southern Supporter, in one of the longest pursuits in maritime history.
Author G. Bruce Knecht chronicles how an obscure fish merchant in California "discovered" and renamed the fish, kicking off a worldwide craze for a fish no one had ever heard of - and everyone had to have. And with demand exploding, priates were only too happy to satisfy our taste for Chilean Sea Bass.
Knecht - whose previous book The Proving Ground was hailed by Walter Cronkite as "a sailing masterpiece...a tale more thrilling than fiction"--captivates readers by deftly shifting among the story's nail-biting elements: The perilous chase at sea through frenzied winds, punishing waves, and an obstacle course of icebergs; the high-stakes environmental battle and courtroom drama; and the competitive battle among the world's restaurants to serve the perfect, flaky, white-fleshed fish.
From the world's most treacherous waters to its most fabulous kitchens, Hooked is at once a thrilling tale and a revelatory popular history that will appeal to a diverse group of readers. Think Kitchen Confidential meets The Hungry Ocean.
This modern pirate yarn has all the makings of a great true adventure tale and is also an exploration of the ways our culinary tastes have all manner of unintended consequences for the world around us.
Hooked is a story about the poaching of the Patagonian toothfish (known to gourmands as Chilean Sea Bass) and is built around the pursuit of the illegal fishing vessel Viarsa by an Australian patrol boat, Southern Supporter, in one of the longest pursuits in maritime history.
Author G. Bruce Knecht chronicles how an obscure fish merchant in California "discovered" and renamed the fish, kicking off a worldwide craze for a fish no one had ever heard of - and everyone had to have. And with demand exploding, priates were only too happy to satisfy our taste for Chilean Sea Bass.
Knecht - whose previous book The Proving Ground was hailed by Walter Cronkite as "a sailing masterpiece...a tale more thrilling than fiction"--captivates readers by deftly shifting among the story's nail-biting elements: The perilous chase at sea through frenzied winds, punishing waves, and an obstacle course of icebergs; the high-stakes environmental battle and courtroom drama; and the competitive battle among the world's restaurants to serve the perfect, flaky, white-fleshed fish.
From the world's most treacherous waters to its most fabulous kitchens, Hooked is at once a thrilling tale and a revelatory popular history that will appeal to a diverse group of readers. Think Kitchen Confidential meets The Hungry Ocean.
G. BRUCE KNECHT is a New York-based writer for The Wall Street Journal. His work has also been published in the Atlantic Monthly and the New York Times Magazine.
""Hooked" is a fish story, a global whodunit, a courtroom
drama--and a critically important ecological message all rolled
into one."--Tom Brokaw
"It's one of the best ones I've read in years" -Tom Brokaw
Today (NBC) 05/24/06
Review by John Balzar, " LA Times"
A high-seas adventure with enough action and suspense to have you
holding your breath.
A mystery that untangles the roots of a culinary fad fitfully
hatched in and marketed from Los Angeles.
A courtroom thriller.
Proof positive that an objective eye is the most persuasive of
all.
Mr. G. Bruce Knecht, take a bow.
Not only is "Hooked: Pirates, Poaching and the Perfect Fish" a
rollicking read, it is a relief. And a wonder. For wrapped up in
these red-blooded storytelling ingredients is the account of
another assault on our planet's troubled environment. And let's
face it, conservation writing has become one of our dreariest
forms: The sky is falling, oh dear fill in the blanks.
In these taut pages, Knecht takes livelier aim at the plundering of
a limited resource for the sake of growing appetites. He delivers
us, straight ahead and close-in, to an epic sea chase across the
fearsome Southern Ocean. In one boat, righteous men are out to get
what they want, what they regard as theirs, in this seascape of ice
and storm. In the other, righteous men are out to stop them in the
name of the law.
The story about the demise of the Patagonian toothfish, an ugly,
tasteless creature with an unappealing name, is not so heartening.
But the fact that Knecht tells it with such crackling drive and
with complete confidence in the good judgment of his readers
is.
The Patagonian toothfish is large, dark-skinned and cod-like in
appearance. The name comes from its undershot mouth and
needle-sharp fangs. It dwells in deep, cold waters -- for purposes
of Knecht's story, in the waters of the far Southern Hemisphere.
Back in the late 1970s, it was a trash fish caught only inci
""Hooked is a fish story, a global whodunit, a courtroom drama--and
a critically important ecological message all rolled into
one."--Tom Brokaw
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