Cath Kerry-Food
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Salmon - a lost pleasure?

10/5/2021

17 Comments

 
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Salmon, unceremoniously plonked and piled in the supermarket chill display.  It's cheap, it's abundant, it's portioned, it's colourful, it's easy, it's available. But according to Tasmanian author and Booker Prize winner, Richard Flanagan, it's toxic.
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Salmon was once a special-occasion food, wild caught and seasonal.  Before salmon farming began (Norway c. 1975) smoked wild salmon served in hotels and restaurants was handled like gold. The salmon was weighed, the weight recorded in a book. The required  slices were removed and plated, possibly draped across some Iceberg lettuce with a twisted slice of lemon and an onion ring.  The salmon was then re-weighed and the weight recorded.  It was precious. Handled with awe and respect,  staff in "cold larder"  would never dare to sneak a snack. 
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Years later, I might be making up sandwiches for my nieces, their primary school packed lunches, with left-overs (farmed salmon) from a catering job  "Oh Cathy, not smoked salmon again!," they whinged.
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Like chicken, salmon has become an industrialised product, the process touted as feeding a hungry world, affordable and  easy to prepare.  In reality, the cost could be  just too great.
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So what has brought on this soul searching? Our Gastronomy Book Club is going well.  We meet monthly and the glass of wine and a few cashews has grown to mini banquets.  We're helpless to resist. Our readings have ranged from romantic, foodie memoirs where tables groan with platters, platters brim with abundance and food bursts with flavour  to hard hitting, thought provoking, often angry diatribes.

This month we're reading the newly released Toxic and seeing the underbelly of the  salmon farming industry. Flanagan calls farmed salmon "a highly artificial, chromosomally manipulated, dyed, fatty protein  with decreasing omega-3 levels". He challenges the image promoted by the industry of idyllic pristine Tasmanian waters producing a clean, green, and healthy product.
  • A Healthy Food? Because of its diet, farmed salmon is no longer the fabulous source of omega-3 oil, the good oil. It's been unbalanced by omega-6, the baddie. Then there are the chemicals with big, unknowable names - like ethoxyquin which is only there to ensure that fishmeal doesn’t self-combust in transport. Farmed fish has grey flesh which is dyed with astaxanthin to create its appetising colour, (in Australia, we prefer shade no. 33, a really deep orange). The antibiotics are there also, 75% of which are not metabolised by the fish and end up in the waters. 
  • Piscatarian? You prefer not to eat meat? Fish-feed pellets also contain the crushed carcasses of chicken, sheep and cows.
  • Clean? Heavily stocked fish live in a vertical soup of faeces, ammonia and uneaten food which in turn, promotes excessive algae. The water is thick with the sludge, as are the beaches.
  • Pristine waters? Industrial noise on water and land is a constant, 24 hours a day. Flotsam of rigid, broken plastic pipes, large bags and rope dangerously litter the water, as well as the sea-shore.
  • Sealife? Waterways that crawled with life (seals, dolphin, whales) are now losing their variety and abundance. The unique (and very cute) red handfish is down to a count of eighty.
  • Globally Sustainable? 1.73K of wild fish are required to make 1K of salmon. We are creating protein by stealing from others. The holier-than-thou soybean used in the feed is linked  to massive deforestation and slave-like working conditions in South America.
  • Employment? – 99% of Tasmanians are not employed by this so-called major industry.
  • Corruption? Would you believe it of government? And the last straw, the RSPCA endorses the product and receives a  financial contribution.

Left: CM's Coulibiac, painstakingly done with the herbed pancake enclosing the fish. (19thC Limoges)
Right: My Coulibiac, a bit of a quickie but delicious, nonetheless. (1930s Royal Copenhagen)

Finding sources of wild-caught Alaskan, Canadian or Scottish salmon seems  extreme. So are we going to find alternates? I'll miss a sliver of smoked salmon on a crouton with sour cream and capers, and some salmon roe topping a runny omelette or a steamed Japanese savoury custard.  I love the Lebanese tahini, yoghurt,  walnut, red onion sauce on a whole fillet of salmon but most of all, will I find an alternative for the Coulibiac - a classic French dish copied from the Russian Kulibiaka, (when the two countries adored each other)?
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Is the book a wake-up call, exposing an environmental disaster, a suspect food product, corporate corruption and a failure of governance or is it leftie, subversive rubbish, from old green hippies protecting their holiday shacks? Or will we simply say ""Yes but...  it's so convenient."
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In my restaurant days, we ate many left-overs. Today, I couldn't face another spoon of 
Marquise au Chocolat but I never tired of salmon. But, I won't be eating it again. I'd rather eat the peanuts from a bar room floor.

Join the conversation.  Add a comment below👇🏾
17 Comments
Pauline
10/5/2021 09:36:26 pm

It’s about greed....to have what ‘they’ have, only, like McMansions, it’s all an illusion, and just as poisonous.

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Cath link
12/5/2021 09:27:09 am

Not sure who "they" are. I was brought up to see the world as my oyster. It was true for me although I was open-minded enough to learn it was not true for everyone. As an egalitarian, I think we are all due some small luxuries and farmed salmon isn't it.

I suspect there is something in the make-up of the salmon that made it suitable to be exploited as an industrial commodity. I am looking into this.

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Adam Wynn
11/5/2021 12:32:15 am

Hi Cath,
We stopped eating Australian farmed salmon a while ago. Didn’t like the taste. I think I could taste all that pent up poo in the water or perhaps the,not so fresh, animal and fish goo they were being fed. New Zealand salmon is still quite alright, although more expensive. It actually tastes pretty clean. Dunno why. Cleaner water, less crowded pens, better food? No idea but you can certainly tell the difference. Leave uncovered on a rack in the fridge to de-moisterise for at least three hours, sprinkle liberally with salt and grill at high temp quickly à la Japonaise.

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Cath link
12/5/2021 09:37:00 am

Good tip about the "curing" of the fish with salt. I certainly got to dislike the cloying, rancid fattiness (and that's coming from a lover of fat).
As much as I admire New Zealand, I'm not yet ready to believe their methods are better. I'm getting up a group to get some Alaskan wild caught salmon from Sydney. (I then collect from the airport.) Costs more but not as much as whiting and local prawns.
Jay Rayner has convinced me that food miles are often the least of our worries.

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Kym Dixon
11/5/2021 08:54:58 pm

Cath, I concur with all the points you have made.
Also, the devastation of the sea grass meadows near the salmon farms is something that often goes unnoticed. Sea grass traps fine sediment that would otherwise turns the water cloudy, it stores large amounts of "blue carbon" and is the nursery for natural fish stocks.
I like the graphic image Richard Flanagan uses to show the "rotting underbelly".

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Cath link
12/5/2021 09:39:47 am

The book is worth reading Kym, albeit sometimes an emotional rant. He mention the loss of seagrass a lot and as you say. its filtering action makes sense.

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Stephanie
14/5/2021 01:28:10 am

Cath, thank you so much for writing about this. I just read a report from some researchers -- 97% of all salmon consumed here in Sweden was farmed in Norway. Your blog post prompted me to search for the the source of the other 3% and I found it -- wild salmon from off the Swedish coast. Since wild stocks are also dwindling, it will be another project to check their sustainability.

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Cath link
14/5/2021 08:13:22 am

Lovely to get this info from the source. We know that Norwegian aqua-business people advised Tasmania that the waters were not suitable for salmon farming, not deep enough to flush away the "debris". Here we are wondering whether Norwegian farmed salmon is a suitable option if we can get it.
I suspect that we should accept that salmon (and smoked salmon) is a special occasion food and should be kept at that, for occasional special occasions.

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ROSA MATTO
15/5/2021 07:30:46 pm

There was a very emotionally charged 'expose' on Tasmanian salmon some years ago on 4 Corners and we stopped eating it then. But Flannagan's book has depressed me so much because of its wider implications. Too sad.

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Cath link
16/5/2021 11:55:11 am

Yes, the implications are far and wide. We are governed by corrupt morons - and our own greed and timidity doesn't help.
Honoré de Balzac - "Behind every great fortune lies a crime". Perhaps true.

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Adrian
17/5/2021 11:40:38 am

Do we have much information on the impact of tuna farming at Port Lincoln? There's large reports at: https://www.pir.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/231656/No_235_RESA_Final_Report.pdf - which is now a little out of date.

I'm appreciating the convenience of KIN's sashimi tuna now being available (Burnside & Central Market) for a rare treat.

It's entirely different than Tas salmon of course but...

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Cath link
19/5/2021 08:17:43 am

This is worth looking into. I know the tuna are fattened in pens, packed in like battery hens. It seems that like salmon, tuna is "good to farm" as they put on weight quickly and are market-worthy very quickly. We are lost!

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Sandra
24/6/2021 12:54:52 am

Hi Cath,
Worked in seafood restaurants in Eire during the late 80s. For a backpacker to dine on lobster, gravalax and deep fried crab balls left overs...loved it! The kitchen got knocks at the door where I was greeted with a lonely thumping great salmon, coddled in the day's newspaper (how did it manage to knock?). The chef just scooped it up without a word to turn it into Bistro magic. Finally I met the kind/crafty soul that left specimens. The name? "Jimmy the Fish". Address? World's End. Favorite head garnish? Beanie through which his hair actually grew. But he certainly knew how to poach the best Salmon. Now, I ask you, one don't get THAT experience with this farmed salmon, basted in it own effluent! I'm just saying.

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Cathg Kerry link
4/7/2021 05:03:25 pm

Lovely story. Yes, salmon was special. We can't wait for special anymore. We it all now, now - and cheap.

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Diana Jaquillard
22/7/2021 11:41:58 am

Recently I saw wild-caught frozen fish, including salmon in the freezer at the Drake’s supermarket on Goodwood Road, which on inspection seemed viable to purchase and was reasonably priced.
I haven’t yet tried the salmon, but will soon. Worth a try!
I tried to add the weblink to their wild-caught salmon, but their website doesn’t show the full range of products.
Like Cath, I dislike the rancid fatty taste of farmed salmon!

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Daniela
29/7/2021 09:55:18 pm

Love this! So well considered. I enjoyed listening to the author of the book on abc recently. Even tho I love salmon, I always wondered why my tum didn’t. I mean, it’s good ‘ol omega 3 food. Why am I feeling blah after eating it. Then I read about how they were farmed. So sad. And frustrating! I want to keep eating salmon, but how? Can’t imagine it not being in my food group, but for now, that’s what it is. Wild caught is a dream. So I guess it’s Coorong mullet! 😀

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Diana Jaquillard
26/9/2021 11:18:52 am

Hi all fish lovers,
I just read about an App Store app available on your phone called GoodFish Australia. It helps you source sustainably-caught fish in retail outlets and also provides names of restaurants that serve the same.
Also had a recommendation from someone about the high quality fresh fish at Atlanta Oysters & Seafood at 5 Ronald Street Thebarton, SA. They have a Facebook page if you want to search that.
Cheers,
Diana

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