Wild Atlantic salmon returns to the river of its birth in the spring. Full of flavour at this time from feeding on the rich plankton around Greenland, its purpose in returning is to breed. But this is the time to eat wild salmon. Records in the 18th century show the salmon fisheries on the rivers, Tay, Spey, Tweed, Don and Dee, producing colossal catches which were eaten both fresh in season and kippered (dried and smoked) in winter. The quantity caught each year was such that salmon was as cheap and common as fish and chips a couple of centuries later.
The subsequent fortunes of Scotland’s Atlantic salmon have risen and fallen over the years, from cheap-everyday-filler, to expensive-rare-gastronomic delicacy. Now it’s back to relative cheapness and availability. The reason, of course, has been the development of the salmon-farming industry, which began in Scotland in 1969. Before this time, legitimately-caught wild Scottish salmon was an expensive and rare luxury; within hours of catching, much of the fish was boxed in ice and loaded onto the London train, an operation which my family witnessed first hand while on holiday in the North-West Highlands when an entire netful of about a hundred salmon — except for one fish — disappeared before our eyes.
We had been standing on the beach at Glenelg on the North-West coast when a salmon-net fisherman got into difficulties. His colleague had been called to row out for some passengers from the steamer which had just come into the loch, so we helped him pull in his net of heaving silver fish. Nothing unusual for him in the size of the haul, but for us it was an amazing spectacle as the net came in closer and we saw the size of it. Without our help, he might have lost the lot. Once the fish were safely up on the beach we were told to leave a jacket lying on a rock nearby, and come back later when the eyes of the village had returned to their houses. Except for the one we found under my father’s jacket — and which we relished for the rest of our holiday — no local person, nor even the local hotel, had more than a passing glimpse of one of the richest flavours of the sea.
More recently, as I hung over the rail of a cage which is home to thousands of Atlantic salmon of a different generation, I thought of the salmon we had enjoyed at Glenelg, and the illegitimate taste which had been my only childhood memory of this long-travelled, stunningly-beautiful, amazingly-flavoured fish. Salmon farming in cages may have become an issue of environment and ethics — and not all of it may be the best-quality fish — but it has brought availability. Scots can now afford to taste their own Atlantic salmon. It has also provided work in fragile rural communities, now that fishing the high seas no longer provides enough employment for everyone. Fish farming is the logical solution. Its success depends, of course, on avoiding pollution and death in the marine environment, and also on preventing the less genetically robust farmed fish from escaping into the native stocks of wild salmon with unknown, and possibly disastrous, consequences.
In the past few years some consortiums of farms have developed, the largest in Shetland, where 63 farms have joined together. Native fishermen of Norse ancestry in both Orkney and Shetland have a strong sense of protecting their marine environment. In Shetland, where the main source of their livelihood is the sea, they have many natural advantages which produce exceptionally fine salmon. Voes (sheltered inlets) not only have good currents flowing through them, but also very few freshwater rivers running into them so the salinity remains high. The water temperature is also cooler. All of which helps to produce a high-quality farmed fish which can hold its own in the markets of the world. There are now 6,000 jobs involved in the fish-farming industry in Scotland.
For the salmon, however, which have made the journey across the Atlantic to the winter feeding grounds in the rich waters around Greenland, and back again, there is another story. While supplies of wild salmon remained plentiful for the best part of the 19th century, there has been a gradual but steady decline throughout the 20th century. Over-fishing, and netting have been just two of the problems, and research is being undertaken to discover the reasons for the decline.
Wild salmon fishing in Scotland begins in February and carries through to September, with variations for rod-caught fish on certain rivers. The best quality are caught in early spring and summer, when still fat and flavoursome from the rich sea feeding grounds. They are likely to weigh around 4kg (8lb) upwards; a large fish is 15kg (30lb) while exceptionally large fish may reach 25-30kg (50-60lb). When, and if, they reach their original birthplace and the female spawns and the male ejects his milt on top of the spawn, they become either spent kelts and die from exhaustion and lack of food, or mended kelts who make it back to the sea. Around five per cent return to spawn again. They will usually spend two to three winters in the sea, maximum five.
Salmon farming depends on breeding stocks which are ‘milked’ for their eggs in November. The eggs are checked to ensure they are free from disease and then they are kept in controlled conditions until they hatch in March. The young fish are very tiny, and are carefully monitored. They are reared in special tanks, and as they grow in size, are transferred to larger tanks in fresh-water lochs, where they grow until they are large enough to be transferred to the sea farms in lochs fed by sea water.
They will be silver along the belly turning to blue/black along the back, with an internal colour a variety of shades of reddish-pink according to feeding and condition. Currently, around 50,000 tonnes of salmon are farmed, while only about 600 tonnes are legitimately caught wild — possibly another 200 tonnes are illegally caught or poached.
This was the choice of English chef, Alastair Little, at the 1993 Scottish Food Proms Chefs’ dinner in Perth when he took over the kitchens, with Shaun Hill, to show what could be done with Scottish produce.
Alistair’s salmon was Shetland farmed, and the rocket came from Robert Wilson in the Carse of Gowrie (Scotherbs see p.). He tossed the rocket in a warm hollandaise-type dressing just before serving with new potatoes and butter. The skinned, boned fillets were cut at an angle of 30 degrees, making an inch-thick (2.5cm) slice which he then threw onto an oil-free smoking hot-plate. The fish stuck at first. Then after about 30 seconds, the natural oil in the flesh released it, and it was turned to the other side for another 30 seconds. While Alistair’s salmon was judged a huge success, there was one thing missing — the skin. Use the skin, says David Wilson of the Peat Inn, in The Flavour of Scotland (1995). It has natural oils which are a very good flavour, and should not be thrown away. He’s right of course. Pan-fry and grill it, he says, to make a crisp crunchiness which contrasts with the moist succulence of the fish.
Serve rich salmon with a hot, sharply pungent orange vinaigrette, says Sonia Stevenson, previously chef at the Horn of Plenty in Devon, but now travelling the length of the country teaching her sauce and fish courses. She has just made this splendid sauce for us in Mo Scott’s demonstration kitchen at Earlshill Farm, at Lochwinnoch, just outside Glasgow. The recipe is in her book The Magic of Saucery (1995).
4 x 100/125g (4oz) salmon fillets, boned, descaled with skin left on
sea salt
mixed green salad leaves
For the hot orange vinaigrette:
150ml (5fl oz) water
200g (7oz) sugar
300ml (10fl oz) white wine vinegar
zest of 1 large orange
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
300ml (10fl oz) groundnut oil
To prepare the salmon, slash the skin 5-6 times with a sharp knife. Sprinkle over some sea-salt.
Heat a frying pan until it is very hot but not burning. Place in the salmon, skin-side down. The skin will stick at first but as the fat is released in the skin it will loosen. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until the fish is about half cooked through. The time will depend on the thickness of the fish.
Remove from the pan and transfer to a foil-lined baking sheet. Place skin-side up. Cook the skin until crisp under a very hot grill, for 3-4 minutes. Serve, skin side up.
To make the orange vinaigrette:
Dissolve the sugar and water in a pan and bring to the boil, simmer until it reduces and turns golden and lightly caramelized. Averting your face, but stirring well, add the vinegar and then the orange. Boil to reduce until about 300ml (½ pint).All the caramel should have dissolved but if some still remains, add some more water and boil down again to 300ml. Add mustard and mix in by boiling the mixture and shaking the pan. Pour into a heated wide-necked jar, add oil, put on lid and shake hard to emulsify.
Serving:
Place salmon on heated plates and pour vinaigrette round the fish. Serve with boiled potatoes and salad leaves in season. Store leftover vinaigrette in the fridge.
REdelve, mix, and Rake your ground for Immediat use. Delve about the Roots of all your Trees. Yet plant Trees and rather greens. Also prun such except the Rosinious. Propagate by laying circumposition, and especially by cuttings. Sow the seeds of most Trees and hardy greens. Cover these Trees whose Roots lay bair, and delve doun the dungs that lay about your young Trees all winter, covering on leitter again topt with Earth to prevent drought in summer: this is a material observation and more especially for such as are late planted. Slit the bark of ill thriving Trees. Fell such as grow croked in the nurserie. Grassing is yet in season, (but too late for stone fruit) cut off the heads of them Inoculated.
Set peas, beans, Cabbage, Asparagus, Liquorish. Sow parsly, beets, Endive, Succory, Bugloss, Burrage, Sellery, Fennell, Marigold. Plant shollot, garleeks, Potatoes, Skirrets. Sow Onions, Lettice, Cresses, Parsneep, Beet-rave, Radish, &c, And on the hotbed coleflour, and if you please cucumber, &c.
Slip and set physick herbes, July-flowers, and other fibrous Rooted flowers. Be carefull of the tender, the peircing colds are now on foot. Turne your fruit in theRoom but open not yet the windows.
Catch Moles, Mice, Snails, Worms, destroy frogs spawn, &c.
Half open passages for bees, they begin to fit, keep them close night and moring: yet you may remove them.
Garden Dishes and Drinks in season.
Both green and housed herbes and Roots: also Pickled, Housed, and conserved fruits: with their wines as in the former months.
John Reid, The Scots Gard’ner, (1683)