The Legal Sea Foods Cookbook

How the Berkowitz family went from the Legal Cash Market, a meat market and grocery on Inman Square in Cambridge, to 6 restaurants serving about 8,000 customers a day. The shop took its name from the Legal trading stamps given out with groceries.

George Berkowitz admits he never ate fish until he was about 25. This chapter covers the health case for fish, read before publication by a Harvard Medical School associate professor.

The first rule: buy fresh fish and cook it the same day. Because fish has no government grading like meat, freshness depends on how it is handled from boat to counter, and this chapter shows how to judge it.

A guide to the fish at the counter, from bass and bluefish to cusk, pollock and wolffish, and how to swap a cheaper fish for a familiar one by matching texture.

Baking, broiling, frying, grilling, poaching, sauteing and steaming, plus cutting and filleting. The point: care in cooking matters more than the method.

The heart of the book, arranged fish by fish. Most recipes take less than half an hour.

Clams, crabs, lobsters, mussels, oysters, scallops, shrimp and squid: how to buy, clean and cook them, and a home clambake. The restaurants served almost 4,000 pounds of shrimp a week.

Starts with the clam chowder the restaurants sold at about 700 gallons a week, then works through every shellfish.

The Inaugural Fish Chowder, Onion Strings, tartar sauce, the corn-flour frying mix, the cracker-crumb topping, fish stock, and the desserts, including Grape-Nut Custard and Gingerbread with Fresh Applesauce.