Wild Smoked Salmon
The ultimate in smoked salmon luxury, most connoisseurs will
tell you that this the only kind of salmon they will eat.
This is salmon that has been caught swimming wild in the oceans
and seas of the world, as opposed to farmed and harvested
in lakes and man-made pools. The only conundrum is that “fresh”
wild smoked salmon is only available seasonally in certain
parts of the world, during netting season so buyers have to
be careful when purchasing so-called ‘wild’ smoked
salmon. It is only available fresh for a very short period
during the netting season. More often than not, fish labeled
“wild” available out of season is has been mislabeled
or prepared from fish that was frozen the summer before. Flavor
wise, most people would not be able to taste the difference
between wild smoked salmon and farmed smoked salmon. However,
there are certain divergences. Wild smoked salmon roams the
waters at will, and therefore is typically leaner (less fatty)
than farmed salmon. Moreover, the fat content and texture
of wild smoked salmon can vary, so the flavor can also vary
depending on the fish itself. So don’t be surprised
if you find wild smoked salmon that greatly differs in flavor
and textures. Once the salmon starts coming in from the ocean
to spawn, the fat content will start to decrease at it strains
to make its way upriver. So where the fish is caught will
also affect the flavor and fat content. A fish caught way
upriver will have wasted its fat reserves, and therefore will
be much less desirable. Farmed smoked salmon, on the other
hand, will almost always have identical fat contents, which
will also tend to be high as they do not need to make the
strenuous journey up stream.
Farmed Smoked Salmon
Due to the convenience
and depleted wild salmon populations, aquaculture has become
a major world industry. Today, most smoked salmon is farmed
all around the world, which provides a steady supply of fresh
and smoked salmon to the market. When examining farmed smoked
salmon, where the fish comes from becomes less important than,
as opposed to wild smoked salmon, where origin is everything.
How the fish are raised, cured, and the smoking technique
used become the more determining factors on the quality and
labeling of the fish. The way to make it less confusing is
to think of it this way: any type of salmon species can be
farmed pretty much anywhere under the right conditions; thus,
you might have farmed smoked salmon from a Pacific species,
farmed in Norway, and smoked using a cold-smoking technique,
and labeled Norwegian smoked salmon. The more important issue
is the flavor and smoking. In the case of salmon, fat is flavor.
Since farmed salmon are more sedentary than their wild counterparts,
farmed smoked salmon has a more buttery smooth flavor, oilier
and, some will argue, more flavorful. As for the color, it
tends to have a brighter red color, which is actually derived
from chemically enhanced feed pellets placed at the bottom
of the lake (farm-raised salmon without the use of these pellets
would be very unappetizing grey color). The bottom line is
that unless you go to a specialty store, and pay high prices,
and it happens to be the netting season, you will more often
than not be consuming farmed smoked salmon. Farmed smoked
salmon has another advantage over its wild cousin: since it
is given the perfect balance of protein, oils, and fats, their
composition is more homogenous and balanced than the salmon
found in the wild.