I think it took me (or us) a couple attempts to get this right - let me introduce you to Zf_Crud, a CRUD controller for the Zend Framework. [...] Zf_Crud aims to provide you with an interface for any table possible - think of it as a phpMyAdmin more tailored towards your data and (thanks to Twitter Bootstrap and the Easybib_Form_Decorator) prettier!

He shows how to install and use it (via PEAR or Composer) and an example of a controller extending it. You can find the code here on github, ready to clone and try out.