Granville Island Cold Smoked Salmon Quest

[Steve Drucker]

Rainy Sunday morning shuffling through the opening hour crowd in the Granville Island Public Market building embarked upon a quest: BC cold Smoked Salmon. Never frozen. The McCoy.

The impetus: genetic. Three generations of immigrant Middle European forebears reverant of smoked meat and smoked fish.

Have in prior years paid multiple pilgrammages to Schwartz's on St Laurent for smoked meat not lean. My wife still wears her Schwartz's t-shirt to bed half the nights of the week. She wore it last night here at the hotel. I have read perhaps the best Montreal novel mis en scene ever written multiple times (the first three chapters of 'The Main' by Trevanian).

The Oyama sojourn, (Jambon Bayonne, assorted salumi), in response to my query the counter person suggests BC Salmon across the aisle.

An inspection of BC Salmon's smoked salmon selection yields the same packages as at Longliner and every other booth vending smoked salmon in the Public Market. All the same, all previously frozen, all the same price. Something's fishy. A conspiracy against the true believer?

Insult to injury, last week at Costco in Atlanta I picked up some very nice Alaskan cold smoked sockeye at $8.99 USD for a half pound (227 grams) Half Moon Bay brand. The Public Market price was uniformly $14 CAD--ergo not a good value. I chuckle and figure the valuation--my restaurant food cost consciousness suffers not an iota of attrition despite the fact I'm twenty years out of the loop.

By 11:00 or so, we're done with inspecting every booth in the Public Market building and its raining like hell. My wife embarks upon obligatory tschotchke (eg. tourist clutter) shopping. Its pretty much the same stuff as she can buy at Faneuil Hall in Boston or even Underground in Atlanta. She quickly loses interest.

Peeking out the door of tschotchke central, she spies Lobsterman around the corner. Its raining harder than ever, we've brought an umbrella, but it is back in the car two blocks away.

We tighten our collars, dash across the alley and into Lobsterman.

Inside, we shake off like water dogs. Our eyes adjust to the light. We walk ten paces forward. Spread before us, the front counter runs the width of the building. It is FILLED with cold smoked salmon and black cod.

The proprietor seems to be a European woman well beyond a certain age. She replies to our questions with terse patience.

She is uncowed. Are there any nitrates in the salmon? No. What are the ingredients? Fish, salt, sugar, smoke. How much sugar? Very little. Where is it made? On premises--the only place on Granville Island that smokes its own--here she waxes (well, for her, anyway) eloquent.

The prices are a dollar or two or several less than the fixed prices in the Public Market building. My blood quickens.

She doesn't offer a taste--she's hip to that game, and offers nothing. Rather she points to a bag of pre-sliced ends and pieces and observes that the bags are half the price of the pre-sliced 1/4, 1/2 and one pound slabs. Same product. Best price of entry. She seduces me, sure she's found my button.

She has. I accept a bag with a plan fully formed, lay down my $3 CAD.

Faster than she can park my money in the register (and for this shopkeeper, that is very fast indeed), my fingers are knuckle deep in fish.

'Ok' I say, 'I own it now, now I'm going to taste it'. She allows the barest smile.

Silky, salty, dense. I lick my fingers. I mentally plot my return the day prior to our departure and query her about possible difficulties in bringing her pre-sliced cold smoked sockeye across through US customs, back to Atlanta.

None, she says. None whatsoever. Patiently terse again, the deal done.

Another customer comes in through the rain. My time is over.

Lobsterman is a do not miss. You get it, or you don't.

Thank you EG.

................................

Granvile Island Market Miscellany.

To host the smoked salmon, an artisanal caraway rye from Bagette et L'Echalote. The other choice was Terra, which had a very long line. Not all the breads at Baguette looked good, but the rye seems to be the real deal.

Bought those Rainforest Crisps at Dussa's. Not to our taste. Too much sugar for crackers. 6.95 down the drain. Rather than 86 them entirely, gave them to another Oyama customer, somewhat taken aback at our largess. We explained that a friend had recommended them. She was from Chicago. Hope she enjoyed them.

[Sam Salmon]

You're a little mixed up on a few counts.

Yes it's true that most vendors sell the same product-the best is custom smoked from Sport caught fish and can't legally be sold.

The idea that fresh-smoked fish is somehow superior is to my taste wrong -any 'fresh smoked fish' I've had didn't have enough intensity.

Many here believe that the breaking down of cell walls that occurs when fish is frozen allows the flavour to bloom.

Also the smokehouse you ran into isn't the Lobsterman at all it's Granville Island Smokery run by one Heidi Reynolds-whom I know of old.

Since I know the proprietor and her MO I can assure you that you were told what you want to hear and veracity was thin on the ground.

The brine is reused until it's a thin shadow of what it once was-the trimmings you were offered are in fact cut off from Salmon smoked for the sports trade.

I could go on and on about double dipping and the like but suffice it to say that I never ever have any of my fish done there after having been burned badly by a shoddily run third rate operation.

[Steve Drucker]

You're a little mixed up on a few counts.

Yes it's true that most vendors sell the same product-the best is custom smoked from Sport caught fish and can't legally be sold.

What is the best that can be legally sold? Where is it sold?

The idea that fresh-smoked fish is somehow superior is to my taste wrong -any 'fresh smoked fish'  I've had didn't have enough intensity.

Many here believe that the breaking down of cell walls that occurs when fish is frozen allows the flavour to bloom.

A food service pro perspective: smoked salmon comes out of the freezer pretty well. That said, everything that goes into the freezer undergoes cell wall decomposition as water expands during freezing. If cold smoked salmon is improved by the process, I remain in show me mode.

Also the smokehouse you ran into isn't the Lobsterman at all it's Granville Island Smokery run by one Heidi Reynolds-whom I know of old.

Since I know the proprietor and her MO I can assure you that you were told what you want to hear and veracity was thin on the ground.

The brine is reused until it's a thin shadow of what it once was-the trimmings you were offered are in fact cut off from Salmon smoked for the sports trade.

I could go on and on about double dipping and the like but suffice it to say that I never ever have any of my fish done there after having been burned badly by a shoddily run third rate operation.

←

rephrase: Lend me direction, I'm a field dog attuned to the point!

Else I'll stick with the Half Moon Bay sockeye at Costco. Sigh.

Edited September 5, 2005 by Steve Drucker (log)

[Sam Salmon]

Sorry Steve I'm the wrong man to ask because I generally only eat Sport caught processed by certain small boutique operations.

Even those places use mushy seine caught product for their main lines.

I have seen Alaskan operations on the net that offer troll caught fish but it's all marketed frozen-what you're looking for doesn't exist here AFAIK.

[jamiemaw]

Gravadlax is our weapon of choice and easy to make, but for a quality commercial cold-smoked product we've had very good luck with C's Nass/Skeena sockeye or their Skeena pink. Both are available at the restaurant or Stong's. Unfortunately

the C Website doesn't have pricing information but as I recall it wasn't wildly unreasonable, just wild. And delicious: Rob Clark micro-manages his product; the Hawkshaw catch is live-caught and handled immaculately.

"The Hawkshaws have pioneered a selective gillnet fishery on Skeena River sockeye, catching fish by the jawbone, not the gills, and landing them live. The fish are bled and dressed live, making them the highest quality sockeye available anywhere. The Hawkshaw’s method allows them to catch fewer fish, release any by-catch like coho and steelhead without injury, and earn three times the going rate for the fish they land because they concentrate on quality, not volume. Ecotrust Canada is working alongside the Hawkshaws to create policy and market openings for their selectively caught, highest quality wild fish." -- Expurgated from a brief from Ecotrust Canada

We were the beneficiaries of the product at the Sustainability Luncheon held earlier this summer.

[Sam Salmon]

I've met Hawkshaw-quite a 'character'.

His method of catching/processing/marketing Salmon is innovative and produces a decent product.

Nothing like what a dedicated Sportie like myself can do but certainly a world away from the seine caught mush flogged in so many places.

[Steve Drucker]

...for a quality commercial cold-smoked product we've had very good luck with C's Nass/Skeena sockeye or their Skeena pink. Both are available at the restaurant or Stong's...

I believe, but this requires verification as my memory is suffering from EG Vancouver forum induced good food overload, that we saw this Sat afternoon at Les Amis du Fromage, bloomin' (grin) rock solid frozen.

[Steve Drucker]

...for a quality commercial cold-smoked product we've had very good luck with C's Nass/Skeena sockeye or their Skeena pink. Both are available at the restaurant or Stong's...

I believe, but this requires verification as my memory is suffering from EG Vancouver forum induced good food overload, that we saw this Sat afternoon at Les Amis du Fromage, bloomin' (grin) rock solid frozen.

[jamiemaw]

...for a quality commercial cold-smoked product we've had very good luck with C's Nass/Skeena sockeye or their Skeena pink. Both are available at the restaurant or Stong's...

I believe, but this requires verification as my memory is suffering from EG Vancouver forum induced good food overload, that we saw this Sat afternoon at Les Amis du Fromage, bloomin' (grin) rock solid frozen.

←

Steve,

Buy it 'fresh' directly from the restaurant if you like, but have no qualms about frozen product. As long as frozen (or FAS) salmon is thawed correctly (long, reefered) there is little discernable (we've done the blind tastings) difference. We've thrashed this discussion to death (FAS vs. Fresh) on several other threads. Bear in mind that most of the salmon sashimi that you eat has been (necessarily) frozen. And all of the salmon at, say, Go Fish is also FAS.

If I buy it at Les Amis, for the weekly run up to Kelowna I put it near ice in my cooler. Upon arrival (4 hours later), I place it in a cold part of the fridge. It's nicely thawed by dinner time or for brunch the next morning.

Thawed too quickly though, and you'll be mixing it 50:50 with cream cheese.

Hope this is helpful,

Jamie

Edited September 7, 2005 by jamiemaw (log)