Foghat....

The annual family charter fishing excursion yielded the usual bounty of oceanic delights, and then some. This year, aside from the standard pacific northwest salmon species selection ("all my ho's are coho's"), I was able to capitalize on the seizure of two apparently less desirable denizens of the depths: the delectable Humboldt squid, and my new homie the mackerel. No one on the boat wanted either of these tasty fellows, but I spoke up to claim them, with delicious results. I still secured a sea lion's share of the salmon (or, my legal quota of two per person per day), and even left with an enormous bag of freshly filleted rockfish, but the highlight was the satisfaction of driving home with 10 lbs of unexpected, impossibly fresh calamari after what always proves as a grueling, rainy few days on the sea. A few days on the water relaxing with such intensity can strip a lesser man of his will power, his sobriety, his stomach. But, I beat on ceaselessly against the tides, much like the another northwest icon, the grizzled Gorton's fish-stick guy. Alas, the battle of Who's More Grizzled is always lost.

I bought a smoker before I made it home, to save my uncle the trouble of smoking my salmon, and mailing it back to me. It was beginning to seem inefficient and burdensome, and it put me two weeks out from savoring the many fish I had hooked, fought, gaffed, mugged, beaten, cajoled, placated, cheated, and clubbed. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the smoker I purchased was manufactured and sold by a company out of Hood River, Oregon. That seems natural, as the mighty Columbia is a sandbox for sealife of many kinds. I cracked open the box and found a booklet with an untold number of recipes for brining and smoking anything you can imagine, really (I can smoke my own cheese...think about smoked cheese...can't stop thinking about smoked cheese... Mad! I tell you) I quickly found one of the brine equations for salmon, and was pleased to note that all of the requisite ingredients were nesting safely in my cupboard. It is too easy, the whole deal. I was somewhat dejected to find such a simplistic list of ingredients, because smoked salmon tastes a lot like magic, or sorcery. The lack of nuance was short lived; as if conducting a science experiment, the process of smoking fish has inherent negative variables to corral and suppress. And, like the hordes of people in foreign countries recently working towards smashing the world record for number of dancing zombies in a Thriller video, participation and attentiveness is half of the battle.

Brine:

• brown sugar
  
• salt (non-iodized)
  
• Old Bay seasoning


• nothing else

1. Warm some water, enough to dissolve the sugar and salt
2. This should be a rich concentration, and I didn't measure. I received a tip from an old man on the boat who was killing it and noshing on rice balls with imitation crab meat simultaneously. Says he, "More sugar than salt. Brown sugar. And always more sugar than salt." Admittedly, this advice appears to be masquerading as plagiarized R&B lyrics, but proved to be the sage advice of a stereotypically sage old Japanese man.
3. Submerge the fish overnight in the brine, the longer the better, and refrigerate in a closed container of your choice.
4. Rinse the fish next day, put immediately in smoker when dry.
5. Place in the smoker.

From here, the journey is about preference. Operating the smoker is simple. Do it outdoors (mine is electric, so find an outlet). It should be exposed to the elements as little as possible, in a windbreak. Perhaps a porch or open garage is best. I had to run an extension cord out of my apartment and smell up the joint something awful. Use as many pans of whatever wood chips as you think adequate, but three is a good number, four for thick pieces. The outside temperature dictates the process, as my smoker has only two settings...'on', or unplugged. But you might want to set aside an afternoon and evening, checking it often for color and 'doneness'. This whole thing takes hours if done carefully. It was all I did for two days. Great excuse for beer drinking, for those who need an excuse for beer drinking.

The reward was an abundance of honeyglazed, precisely smoked, tender, sweet, smokey fish that I had personally wrangled. Lot of work, but plenty of fun. And, it doesn't get more local, sustainable, or more northwest. This is just what we do here.

Smoked salmon has so many culinary applications, subsequent blog posts are required. But keep it simple, like the old man on the boat. Again the old lesson is pounded home...less is more. Don't overthink this. You'll know when it is ready. Always more sugar than salt.

Ripples in a creek

The salmon skeet skeet

In shoreline pebbles

Ponder salmon sperm and the northwest's economic and cultural reliance...?

The salmon embodies a very much alive culinary cultural tradition. Though this is easy to overlook in a place where culinary diversity abounds, reproduces, spawns so fruitfully.