Posted on 07/13/2013 10:26:52 AM PDT by nickcarraway
I have come to view a meal of wild salmon as a splurge, a treat to be savored, and I’m willing to pay the price. Wild salmon is a seasonal thing, available from May to October. It’s not cheap, but the flavor is incredible — sweet, silky, meaty — and the vermilion color is magnificent.
With the abundance of relatively low-priced farmed salmon, however, many of us succumb. But the flavor of farmed salmon doesn’t even compare. It’s like the difference between a free-range chicken and one that’s been factory raised.
Wild salmon swims long distances, its color a result of a natural diet of krill, plankton and algae. Farmed salmon languishes in pens, and its pink color comes artificially.
And even if some fish farms are exploring more-sustainable methods, it is well known that aquacultured salmon is an environmental danger and potential health hazard. A quick Internet search will give curious cooks more information on the topic. It’s enough to put you off your dinner, and may well make you a wild-salmon convert. Certainly, once you taste wild salmon you’ll be convinced.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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It's hard to read this without thinking of the socio-political implications of the benefits of freedom versus total government control over one's environment.
So basically, I think this guy’s bottom line is “Politically correct salmon makes me feel more liberal when I eat it, and that makes it better salmon.”
There have been court battles over fish farming and the hippies have bumper stickers urging people not to eat farmed fish. They also support taking private property in order to protect streams, shoreline habitats, etc.
If fish farming is outlawed or regulated in ways we haven't seen, then courts will have precedents for tomato farming and all others. In the name of saving salmon we are tearing out renewable energy producing hydro electric dams and funding wind mill construction. But wind mills are killing migratory birds.
As is the case in most political areas, the real battle is something other than the topic in the news.
I was in Simon and Seafort's Saloon & Grill in Anchorage years ago. Fresh Wild salmon grilled on a cedar plank. Almost no seasoning. The best meal I ever had. Always worth the price.
IMHO, farm salmon are mushy with a vague taste. We’ve given up buying it. I’d rather have hamburger. Wild salmon is quite good, but the price means we only buy some once in a while.
I’ll get the bagel and cream cheese!
The guy didn’t realize he was eating arctic char.
Lay the two side by side and I'd bet money this pretentious ass couldn't tell the difference.
“Worth the price” is a redundancy.
Depends on how "free range" that chicken was.
If it was like some of the chicken I had in Kenya which was truly "free range" he would know because one would be dark, tough and dry with the other would be lighter, tender and juicy.
American "free range" you are probably right.
Wish I still had my pictures of all the rows and rows of nets crossing some of the magnificent rivers I fished down there in WA state! The salmon didn't have a chance!
Nothing like standing in your waders with a pole with one hook in the water, and no fish in the creel, freezing your arse off, when one of the "Chosen" show up laughing at you as he pulls in a net just overflowing with those gorgeous salmonoids!!!
Why? Do you have something against being educated?
I believe a strong vocabulary is a great thing to aspire to. English speaking people only use a fraction of the words available to them. It's time to dust them off and put them back into everyday usage.
My first meal of Kenya free range chicken I tried to smuggle out to sell to Goodyear as the basis for tires that would last 200,000 miles.
I thought that I was going to pull my teeth out, trying to get any of the chicken meat off the bone.
Steak was cheaper in Kenya than chicken. Not grain fed, though, so it tasted different with little marbling.
Eventually, KenChic started selling chicken which was raised in chicken houses and much more tender.
All it needed was some celery to make the meal complete. Good grief but that stuff was bitter!<P
I don’t have dog in this fight(although I have worked on a purse seiner in Alaska) but many blind tests have shown that people can’t taste the difference farm and wild when served the same species of salmon. Anybody can taste the difference between a chum and a king.
“IMHO, farm salmon are mushy with a vague taste.”
They also tend to be more oily/greasy in my experience. Give me indigestion.
Must be from the Purina Salmon Chow.
I get my Salmon in a can, still expensive though. Fresh Salmon right now is like 6.99 a pound but in a can it is like at least 5 bucks.
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