I am half African-American, half Italian-American and although I have
no Asian heritage, I have been obessed with Asian food stores for as
long as I can remember. I bought several books an Asian ingredients
and they have been helpful. I have this one Asian ingredient that I
cannot find any help with.

I am a fish and seafood fanatic. I walk down really huge aisles in the
Asian food stores and marvel at all the different varieties of Dried
Fish but I do not know how to cook them? I guess some may have more
salt in the drying process and maybe others do not but I am still
tottaly clueless as to how to cook this Dried Fish. What are the
conventions for possibly soaking them and preparing them?

I own no less than 300 cook books and no less than half of them are
Asian cuisine. Never a single word is mentioned about this Dried
Fish!?

I am confused by this.

An entire aisle of Dried Fish tells me Asian people must be eating a
lot of it. Then why not a single word about it in any of my
"authentic" Asian Cooking books?

I would appreciate any light that could be shared with me on the
subject. Any links, books or even section(s) of any books that spend
any time talking about dried fish.

Gratefully,
Steven