如今，大洋彼岸的转基因鲑鱼为成为世界首个可食用转基因动物正在全力冲刺。人们认为鱼类从茫茫大海到餐桌的这段旅程理应拥有被知晓这一基本的尊重。保罗·格林伯格（Paul Greenberg，1967年生，美国作家和散文家）在书中以亲切、诙谐的笔锋，从文化、社会、经济、生态等方面，结合采访纪实、亲身体验和渔业科学，深入报道了鲑鱼、海鲈、鳕鱼、鲔鱼这四种鱼的故事。关心海洋、爱鱼或喜爱海鲜的人们，或许你们会愿意跟随作者：

——去尤皮克爱斯基摩人祖传的河流——世上最长的鲑鱼河，造访世上唯一一家获得公平贸易联盟认证的渔业公司。

——了解多氯联苯和汞进入海产食物的过程，了解荷、法营养学家如何改良食物、以色列内分泌学家如何制造荷尔蒙，让地中海海鲈行销全球。

——向《鳕鱼》的作者提出挑战，要求对方品尝养殖鳕与野生鳕的差异，讲述渔业的警示寓言。

——南太平洋海底，寻找以取代濒危的黑鲔鱼的鱼类，为我们描绘出入科幻小说般的代理孕鱼技术。

一九七八年，不知是因为强烈的暴风雨，还是前一年为了控制藻类大量生长撒进的硫酸铜，或者是因为非法入侵的渔民，保罗在他的鱼塘里再也没见着活鱼，于是他寻找到新的钓鱼地——一片数千平方英里的海洋。本文节选自书的前言，讲述了作者儿时的钓鱼经历。

ike any hunter whose grounds have gone bad， I set out looking for new territory. I followed the outflow of the pond down a series of cascades that in turn flattened out into a low， 1）swampy meadow of deep 2）oxbows. Only 3）minuscule 4）shiners， crawfish， and escaped goldfish swam here. Farther and farther I went， until the stream joined a larger river and passage was blocked by a fence that a wealthy landowner had erected. Inspecting a map at the library， I found that this was a significant juncture for my stream （as with “my” pond， I had 5）annexed the stream and referred to it now as “mine”）. The point at which it was no longer my stream was where it entered the Byram River， a flow that during the times of Native American 6）sovereignty was called the Armonck， or “fishing place，” but which， according to one local legend， the English renamed because of the native tendency to 7）pester white men with armfuls of 8）shad and 9）herring for trade and the endlessly repeated 10）entreaty “Buy rum？ Buy rum？” The Byram continued south for another ten miles after the juncture before widening and finally emptying out into the sea. The beginning of an idea came to me.

Several hundred dollars made it into my account after an 11）ersatz 12）bar mitzvah that my partially Jewish family 13）cobbled together for me when I turned thirteen， and through a debt-leveraged matching grant from the depths of my mothers complicated finances I was able to purchase a used aluminum boat and a twentyhorsepower outboard engine. Using her good figure and her ability to forge solidarity with the working classes （she had been a friend of the American socialist Michael Harrington and was an experienced strike 14）aide-de-camp）， my mother persuaded the Greenwich harbormaster to let us jump the waiting list for a boat slip at the Grass Island Marina. By the summer of 1981， I had a boat， a place to store it， and serveral thousand square miles of sea for my own use. Better hunting grounds had been found at last.

This was not the time of child seats or swallow-proof soda-can tabs. No safety seals secured 15）Tylenol bottles or yogurt containers. Today it would be considered parental negligence， but in that first summer of boat ownership my mother would drive me down to the Grass Island Marina， seat belt-less， in her black secondhand luxury-edition Chrysler Cordoba， and drop me off at my thirdhand boat. As I finished dumping my gear out of her trunk， she would light a Dunhill cigarette， cough heavily， and then， with a glance in her rearview， speed off into the childless afternoon ahead of her. So， at the age of thirteen， I learned how to navigate and fish on the sea by myself. It wasnt difficult—Im sure most children， given the opportunity， could have figured it out. Once upon a time， being thirteen really did mean you were a man. But the feeling of steaming out into open water in pursuit of wild game， leaving the financial and physical constriction of mainland Connecticut behind， was exhilarating.

我跟在狩猎场打不到猎物的猎人一样，开始寻找新的钓鱼地点。我跟着从池塘流出的水流，经过一连串小瀑布，来到一片有许多U字形牛轭湾、如沼泽般的低浅草地，那里只有银色小鱼、淡水鳌虾和逃脱的金鱼。……