The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #71561 Message #1230713
Posted By: Stilly River Sage
21-Jul-04 - 11:26 AM
Thread Name: BS: Comfort food
Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
Bert, you know what that $1 a pound salmon tastes like? Cardboard. What we get down here at that price is the little bland silvers (a light pink fish) that hardly have any flavor. But on occasion I've found some of the more flavorful larger whole red salmon on a really good sale for between $3 and $4 a pound. Then I take it home and smoke some and freeze some and eat some right away. Amazingly, this summer we got Copper River salmon down here (a variety of King salmon) for just under $6 a pound at Sam's, of all places. If I bought it at Whole Foods it would be closer to $15-$20. It goes fast. It seems to me that Sam's didn't know what they were selling, but I wasn't about to tell them!
I had some friends pass through town on the day I discovered the salmon, so I bought a large piece, raced home and made a loaf of crusty Italian bread, cut some chard from the garden to steam, served my fresh garden tomatoes on the side, and set up the charcoal grill (started with newspaper--no starter fluid hydrocarbons came near this treasure) and prepared it with olive oil and garlic before grilling. After all of this we had a homemade apple cobbler for dessert. From the moment they walked in the door that meal was viscerally satisfying and a pleasure to serve to three such good friends (who converged after traveling from several different places around the U.S., who all specialize in American Indian literature, and who have heard about the Northwest delicacy of grilled salmon). The smell of the fresh bread, the grilled fish, and the baking apples (with the cinnamon and nutmeg that MMario mentioned in the applesauce above) was perfect. We had a nice bottle of Chateau St. Michele (from Washington State) Johannesburg Riesling with it.
I've never experienced treacle, so have nothing to go by. My "eewwwww" had to do with the various renderings (pun intended) of pig skin.
SRS