Alton enlists the services of fishmonger Jim Ragg for expert advice of purchasing fish.

The Food Network usually bills this episode as "Hook, Line and Dinner" (they replace the ampersand from the official title card with the word 'and').

Alton: Over seventy percent of our cozy little planet is covered with water. And thankfully, there’s a lot of tasty stuff out here to eat. So much so, in fact, that the average American cook has over a hundred market varieties of fish to choose from.

Alton: When it comes to buying whole fish, there’s no holy grail, there’s no secret decoder ring, there’s no one factor to look for. It’s kind of like buying a car – you’ve got to consider the whole package.

Alton: This is Jim Ragg. He’s been cutting fish for... how many years, Jim?
Jim Ragg: Oh, about twenty-two years.
Alton: Twenty-two years. He’s cut so many fish that he can’t even go to the beach for fear of retribution. If there was just one thing that you could look for – one factor – what would it be?
Jim Ragg: It would be the smell.
Alton: Smell. What should it smell like?
Jim Ragg: Nothing.

Alton: (holding a fish skeleton aloft) Sorry, Charlie. Your HMO wouldn’t cover the chiropractor.

Alton: If your piece of fish is laying on a plate, and the grain, or the texture of the meat is running parallel to the table? Then you’re in possession of a fillet, as opposed to a steak.

Alton: Since they’re cut across the grain, steaks don’t stick quite the way fillets do, which means they’re perfect for the grill. Unlike clean and uniform fillets, steaks – like this salmon – have shapes that make them difficult to cook evenly, not to mention rib or pin bones, vertebrae and other pleasantly inedible parts.

Alton: A clean grill is your best no stick insurance. So, if your grate looks like a geological formation, get after it with a steel brush or even better, a pumice stone. Otherwise your fish may literally and permanently weld to the grate.

Alton: For 1” steaks, I want a medium hot fire, which means I should be able to hold my hand just over the grate… OW!...about that long…

Alton: (In an aquarium’s fish tank) Just remember: buy fresh, handle properly, season thoroughly and cook simply. Stick with those rules and I guarantee you’re going to land some good eats. (Addressing a nearby fish.) Hey, where do you think you’re going? I’ve got a pan like this big. Hey, don’t make me come over there!

Alton, while discussing how to select fish, opines that there is no “holy grail” and no “secret decoder ring.” The Holy Grail is a legendary cup said to be the cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper. Because of this connection, people worldwide attribute various mystical properties to the vessel, usually based on restorative or healing powers. Over the centuries, hundreds of grail legends and tales have surfaced or been written. More generally, the term “holy grail” has acquired the meaning Alton uses here: a particular bit of knowledge that is key to a wider understanding of a subject or that can transform a mass of inchoate data into a coherent picture. Of far more modern vintage is the “secret decoder ring.” This toy, offered by various commercial enterprises since about 1930, enables the user to transform a ciphered messaged into a clear text message; it exploits childrens’ fascination with secret messages. Children with such rings could understand coded messages presented on, for example, radio programs. They were in on the secret and had an advantage of their friends who lacked such rings. Like the grail, the phrase secret decoder ring has acquired a more general meaning: it has come to refer to a concept or idea that can pierce the opacity of a difficult concept. From vastly different origins the two terms have converged on a similar meaning.

Several times, Alton refers to his striped sea bass as Charlie. The character Charlie was a cartoon “pitchman” for Starkist tuna from the early 1960s until 1980, and again from about 2000 to the present (in the United States – Charlie also appeared in Canada where he became linked to a government scandal.) Charlie wanted Starkist to “catch him” and devised various ways to demonstrate his good taste, consistently refusing to understand the company wanted tuna that tasted good.

Alton will revisit whole fish cooking, and in fact cook a whole striped bass again, in Season 11's Fishing Whole.

A well-rounded episode for those who like fish, this nicely explains how to cook all three commonly found fish forms: whole, fillet, and steak, describing nicely how to cook each form and why that is a good choice. Those who watch this episode carefully should see how to generalize these techniques to all sorts of fish in all their forms, which is what the show does well when it is at its best.