How ironic the week. Times restaurant critic Giles Coren does "A Minute on the Clock" interview (Caterer, 3 November, page 11) and claims that becoming a chef is a decision taken on failing your GCSEs, and then what should arrive on my desk but a book by Leiths School of Food and Wine.
It's probably one of the most comprehensive books written on the subject of fish. It has some fantastic diagrams, which is great, as those of us who can't read after failing our GCSEs can still understand what's going on.
The chapter entitled Fish Industry and Aquaculture is comprehensive in the way it explains industry bodies such as the Sea Fish Industry Authority and the Marine Stewardship Council, and methods of catching fish such as deep-sea trawling and dredging.
The recipes include contemporary and classic, from sole Veronique to hot-smoked salmon with tallegio muffins, bento boxes, rolling sushi and mussels bourride.
So how does it compare with Alan Davidson's Mediterranean Fish and North Atlantic? It's not quite as in-depth, but slightly more user-friendly in its text and diagrams, plus colour pictures.
The great debate over education and training for chefs continues to shudder on. Would this be a better book to use than Practical Cookery, currently being revised? I think so. It's more relevant to cookery today, more exciting and more inspiring, but still covers the classics.
Leiths is a private cookery school with a worldwide reputation for excellence. It was once dismissed by some chefs as a finishing school for ladies, not for turning out "jungle-trained chef killers". This book may change your view.
Giles Coren claimed in his interview that most people enter catering as a last resort. Maybe he can have a chat with three-Michelin-star, multimillionaire chef Gordon Ramsay, who, I'm sure, will defend our reputation in his usual, eloquent non-university-degree style.
Peter Robinson, chef-proprietor, Old Butcher's, Stow-on-the-Wold
Leiths Fish Bible (new edition)
CJ Jackson and Caroline Waldegrave
Bloomsbury, 35
ISBN 0-7475-7102-3