All About Food: ‘Artisanal’ fish farming is on the rise
People are wild about salmon, but wild salmon is wildly expensive and in short supply.
Farmed salmon, on the other hand, is readily available but not necessarily something you want to eat, as it often contains PCBs, antibiotics and other dangerous contaminants. Waste, feed and fish feces build up under the farm pens, smothering life on the ocean bottom, and can become a danger to other marine life.
There is, however, a company called Skuna Bay that has established a new paradigm for fish farming off the coast of Vancouver Island. It might be called “artisanal.” The fish are raised in their natural ocean environment in fast-flowing, glacier-fed currents of clear water with perfect salinity. In contrast to traditional farms, the company’s pens, 20 miles or more off the coast, have a ratio of 98.5% water to1½% salmon.
It takes 3½ years for a fish to grow to maturity and weigh at least 10 pounds. Skuna Bay thinks that salmon should eat fish (as they do naturally). However, it takes 5.5 pounds of fish to produce 2.2 pounds of farmed salmon.
In Chile, the ratio can go has high 8 to 1, which is rapidly depleting our fish population. To reduce pressure on wild fish stocks, Skuna therefore uses roughly one-quarter fish to other ingredients that are plant-based.
The company says, “We would be crazy to be anything but protective of our environment, because if we screw up our water, we won’t have a business.”
Even their unique shipping cartons are recyclable.
Once the fish are harvested, Skuna lets the ocean site rest until the water is in balance with nature before restocking. The final selection and processing are done by six certified experts who choose, clean, brine, rinse, ice and package every fish by hand.
We recently had an eight-course dinner, with four courses of salmon, to introduce the product. Their first and only distributor at the moment is our own Santa Monica Seafood, which shares Skuna Bay’s commitment to quality and excellence.
We first encountered the fish while munching on hors d’oeuvres, and were called over to a table where the chef opened a huge sealed box that looked like a Christmas present and voilà! — a gorgeous, pristine fish with deep red gills, clear eyes and a thick, meaty belly.
Our next encounter was in the form of salmon crudo, a particularly felicitous preparation for this fish, which is Atlantic salmon and not as fatty as wild king. Generous chunks of this silken, mild-flavored fish had accents of citrus and were accompanied by flaky mini-biscuits.
Another flavorful preparation was mirin marinated seared salmon with soba noodles and brown beech mushrooms in a lemongrass scented shellfish broth.
This delicate type of fish was really too mild to shine in the salmon mousse, frisée and rock shrimp salad.
The final salmon course was a pinwheel of salmon wrapped around a medallion of veal in a pinot noir reduction. In this case, because the fish is less fatty than king salmon, for instance, it doesn’t do well baked. It’s at its best raw, steamed or seared.
Currently Skuna Bay salmon is only available from Santa Monica Seafood to chefs. In our area right now it is being used at AnQi, Scott’s Seafood and Five Crowns. Eventually, the company hopes to make it available for retail sales, and it will be much less expensive than wild king salmon.
If price is not an issue and you want the very best, freshest, wild caught king salmon, you can find it at the Laguna Beach and San Clemente farmers markets from A&H Gourmet and Seafood Market. Sam Halaby and his sons bring the live fish down to San Pedro in boats outfitted with tanks filled with the ocean water in which the fish are caught.
ELLE HARROW and TERRY MARKOWITZ were in the gourmet foods and catering business for 20 years. They can be reached for comments or questions at m_markowitz@cox.net.