On Jun 1, 2009, at 6:07 PM, Charles Haynes wrote:
Pacific Northwestern fresh salmon grilled on a cedar plank is really yummy if you ever get a chance.
A wonderful feature of salmon from that region is that there are so many different species to choose from with such diverse characteristics, though some have very short seasons. If you get it in season, it is very likely fresh. Some of the more desirable species, such as sockeye, are also atypically low in environmental toxins compared to the more common salmon.
One of the great tragedies of North American gastronomy is that the only place you can really find fresh Gulf of Alaska seafood is in the northwest corner of the North American continent. The rest goes primarily to Japan, where people are willing to pay a very high price for it. In the Pacific Northwest, there is a unique, emerging style of cuisine that is a bit like French-Japanese fusion but substitutes many of the traditional ingredients with the excellent ingredients local to the region. I adore it. It is one of my all-time favorite styles of food but it does not travel because the ingredients often do not. Some of the more remarkable local fish, such as the sablefish, have a very short shelf-life such that versions found elsewhere are almost universally awful.
Cheers, J. Andrew Rogers
