Salmon Quotes

“You piss me off you Salmon... You're too expensive in restaurants.”
― Eddie Izzard

“For several centuries, the Celtic church of Ireland was spared the Greek dualism of matter and spirit. They regarded the world with the clear vision of faith. When a young Celtic monk saw his cat catch a salmon swimming in shallow water, he cried, "The power of the Lord is in the paw of the cat!”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

“The scariest thing is that nobody seems to be considering the impact on those wild fish of fish farming on the scale that is now being proposed on the coast of Norway or in the open ocean off the United States. Fish farming, even with conventional techniques, changes fish within a few generations from an animal like a wild buffalo or a wildebeest to the equivalent of a domestic cow.

Domesticated salmon, after several generations, are fat, listless things that are good at putting on weight, not swimming up fast-moving rivers. When they get into a river and breed with wild fish, they can damage the wild fish's prospects of surviving to reproduce. When domesticated fish breed with wild fish, studies indicate the breeding success initially goes up, then slumps as the genetically different offspring are far less successful at returning to the river. Many of the salmon in Norwegian rivers, which used to have fine runs of unusually large fish, are now of farmed origin. Domesticated salmon are also prone to potentially lethal diseases, such as infectious salmon anemia, which has meant many thousands have had to be quarantined or killed. They are also prone to the parasite Gyrodactylus salaris, which has meant that whole river systems in Norway have had to be poisoned with the insecticide rotenone and restocked.”
― Charles Clover, The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat

“Because we knew that grunge was the sound of a screaming saw blade—a spawning salmon flicking gravel. It looked like a clearcut. And if you cracked grunge open you would find a moldy fifth wheel trailer inside.”
― Missy Anne, Jimmy James Blood

“Could you imagine what a salmon would say if you asked it about its life? We think our lives are miserable? If only a salmon could speak. This fish spends half of its life swimming upstream, only to reach a body of water where either a bear catches it or it lays eggs only to die right afterward. What are we complaining about then? A salmon does what a salmon does. It doesn’t complain.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“I should design door handles made of flowing water. To open, pull like salmon swim.”
― Jarod Kintz, The Lewis and Clark of The Ozarks

“This means that food is always in the here an now; it is everywhere and nowhere. Yet every time people eat the pliant flesh of salmon they are tasting evolution, natural history and deep time. Indeed, salmon's evolutionary, natural and life histories turned what might have otherwise been a common fish into one of the handful of most important sources of marine-derived fats and proteins the world has ever known.”
― Nicholaas Mink

“Salmon so efficiently convert the sun's energy into food because they are dietary generalists. Much like us, they eat everything.”
― Nicholaas Mink

“When this characteristic is combined with their extraordinary metabolic and growth rates, a normal fish becomes an extraordinary producer of proteins and fats, which, sometime in the not too distant past, exploded from a chain reaction in the sun.”
― Nicholaas Mink

“Not only do salmon efficiently convert the sun's energy into food for humans, but they also deliver that food in meal-sized packages right into the hands, hooks and nets of waiting humans.”
― Nicholaas Mink

“Salmon's anadramous life cycle is one of the miracles of the human food system. It accounts for how eaters have historically accessed and used salmon in their diets. This life cycle sweeps all salmon through the ocean, where they gather the ocean's energy, only then to sacrifice it to the plants and animals on land. Most animals in the human culinary repertoire exploit relatively small areas to provide people with food; this is especially the case in animals farmed in factories, which have little choice but to stay put and have their food come to them.”
― Nicholaas Mink

“Anadromy, in a funny way, produced nature's original convenience food: calorically dense and reliably delivered straight to people's homes in such vast quantities that it seemed limitless.”
― Nicholaas Mink

“Because of the king's evolution in highly specialized environments, it has a relatively small habitat and is therefore the rarest of salmon species. King salmon account for less than 0.1% of the globes salmon. Prized by wealthy consumers, the scarcity maps itself onto taste buds, making king salmon an elite food. Unexpectedly, perhaps evolution is even refracted through our marketplaces and our class structures.”
― Nicholaas Mink

“Within all of these species, of course, there still exist tremendous variations in taste, color and texture. Each season produces new tastes, much like a wine from, say, Burgundy does. For most of their natural history, salmon have been wild foods, so their taste, texture and color resist the homogeneity demanded by industrial food production. Every single wild salmon is different. This is part of the gastronomic beauty of the fish, even though it frustrates consumers with palates trained by corporate food to expect conformity. This fact, too, has been written by evolution and the currents of deep time, processes that privilege diversity over uniformity, chaos over control.”
― Nicholaas Mink

“ Kusunoki left both ingredients as is, wrapping the salmon in the bacon and delicately heating both to elegant perfection.
Using the same concept behind the ramen staple seafood-pork broth, melding the umami of both fish and meat together created a powerfully savory flavor.
The olive oil bath he used to prevent even a drop of the fish's juices from escaping was also an excellent touch.
In the end, his dish was the picture of a salmon's savory deliciousness, perfectly recreated on the plate. ”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 19 [Shokugeki no Souma 19]

“SALMON WITH ANGEL HAIR PASTA


3/4 bottle dry white wine
5 lemons (and zest)
1/2 cup fresh dill, roughly chopped
1 pint heavy whipping cream
4 8-ounce salmon filets
500 grams angel hair pasta
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes, julienned
1 4-ounce jar capers”
― Adi Alsaid, North of Happy

“Knives sliced cleanly through the salmon, pink flesh flaking on either side, the crust giving way with a satisfying crunch. Lenore and Maz were eating, too, but I kept my eyes fixed on Luke's fork. He tried a bite of the salmon plain first, chewing thoughtfully, then swept up some of my rice porridge with the seaweed-pickled vegetables, then returned for a bite of everything together, pink salmon and white porridge and pops of green and red all entering his parted lips.
He closed his eyes as he tasted my food. He didn't open them again until he swallowed. "The salmon is perfect," he said. "Flaky and tender, with just the right amount of smoke, and the crunch of that crust is just..." He paused, those bottomless eyes on mine. The tip of his tongue darted over his lower lip. "Incredible."
I didn't mean to smile, just nod appreciatively at any praise, but I felt it curl over my lips anyway. "Thank you."
"I agree," said Lenore. "The salmon is something quite special. Is the crust rice alone?"
"No," I said. "It's ground rice with some panko and a little nori."
She nodded with approval. "And these seaweed-pickled vegetables are stellar. Bright and tangy, a lovely pop of acid against the richness of the salmon and the porridge.”
― Amanda Elliot, Sadie on a Plate

“A glance through recent newspaper headlines (see, for example,Globe and Mail, August 17, 1995: A2; Vancouver Sun,August 16, 1995: A1) indicates that not much has changed since 1995. Overfishing and depleted stocks have increased tension among the users, and one group in particular, a relatively powerless group holding only 3 percent of the salmon quota, has been particularly targeted by the commercial interests—the aboriginal fishers. The rationale for doing so may be to shirk responsibility for years of overfishing, greed, poor management and bungling DFO officials. It is much easier and convenient to
blame a group that has already been effectively blamed in the past and stereotyped as plunderers. Perhaps the proper word to describe the calculated attacks on the aboriginal fishery is racism, pure and simple.”
― Parnesh Sharma, Aboriginal Fishing Rights: Laws, Courts, Politics

“This is the skin and fat of the salmon's stomach!"
"The skin is crisp, and when you bite on it the sweet fat comes seeping out..."
"A long time ago, there was a lord of a large clan in the Hokuriku area who just loved to eat salmon.
That lord especially liked to eat salmon skin, but salmon skin is very thin. Even if you had all the skin of a salmon, it still didn't satisfy him.
So one day he said, if there was a salmon with a skin that was one foot thick, he'd be willing to exchange it with ten square miles of land...
That is how good the skin of a salmon is. And the meat of a salmon with a lot of fat in it is exceptionally good too. This dish has grilled just those two best parts of it.
First, you cut off the dark meat from the belly meat. Then you sprinkle salt onto the skin and the meat and refrigerate for two to three hours. After that, you grill it over charcoal.
Being careful not to tear the skin, you roll the skin around the belly meat and pin it with a toothpick; this one is the salted one.
On the other hand, this one hasn't been salted; instead, it's been marinated in soy sauce and sake overnight."
"Hmm... he used the best part of a salmon and grilled it with salt or with teriyaki sauce."
"You can't really call this a proper dish at first glance, but its flavor is definitely supreme!”
― Tetsu Kariya, Fish, Sushi and Sashimi

“This is salmon takikomi gohan. You slice the salted salmon into fillet strips and grill just its skin first to give it a savory scent. Then you cut it into cubes and cook them along with the rice.
By placing some Japanese wild parsley on it before eating it, the fishy scent will disappear, making it even more better to eat."
"Hmm. I like how they grilled the skin first to give it the savory scent. And cooking the bones with the rice really brings out the flavor."
"This takikomi gohan lets you taste every essence of the salmon."
"The next one is a classic maze gohan, hijiki rice. A good hijiki is one that's thick and long, with a slight firmness to it. You cook that hijiki along with carrots, shiitake mushrooms, lotus roots and thin fried tofu into a sweet and salty taste and then mix them into the cooked rice."
"Ha ha ha. This is definitely a very Japanese flavor!"
"It's rustic, but it has a rich, fertile flavor that moves my heart.”
― Tetsu Kariya, The Joy of Rice

“Seafood is also something we cannot do without as a country surrounded by sea. And the rich variety of seafood is often used in rice balls.
The first one is a classic rice ball, with salted salmon. It's slightly different since the grilled salted salmon is broken down into flakes...
... and mixed into the rice together with chopped green onion...
...then made into a rice ball and wrapped in roasted dried seaweed."
"Ah, the salmon has been mixed nicely into the rice, so it has a very rich taste."
"And the flavor of the green onion gets rid of the fishy scent of the salmon, making the rice ball taste even better."
"This will be great to have in a lunch box."
"The next rice ball is coated with shredded dried seaweed just like the last one, but the filling is different. It's sea urchin, but it's not raw sea urchin or the typical bottled sea urchin. It's sea urchin shiokara."
"Sea urchin shiokara?"
"Most of the typical bottled sea urchins have been steeped in alcohol. It's probably because they're easier to make and easier to eat.
But in the old days, sea urchin was often made into shiokara. If you salt the sea urchin and let it age and ferment, it becomes far richer tasting compared to a raw sea urchin or the alcohol-macerated sea urchin.
Nowadays, that sea urchin shiokara has become very rare, and many people don't even know what it tastes like. So I've decided to use it as a filling for the rice ball."
"Ooh, it has such a rich taste."
"By being fermented, the sea urchin has developed a completely different flavor along with the original flavor it had.”
― Tetsu Kariya, The Joy of Rice

“ So powerful! Yet so light! The delicate and sweet oil sweeps across the tongue in a paralyzing wave!
The tender and fluffy flesh! The mild and mellow marinade accented with the citrusy bite of yuzu fruit! It's too much!
It's the full power of a perfect Tokishirazu Salmon...
... presented in one direct explosion of flavor! ”
― Yūto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 21 [Shokugeki no Souma 21]

“The Cycle's Whisper by Stewart Stafford

A crisp mountain breeze,
Whispers on verdant meadows,
In the starlings' murmuration,
Bodies flutter as the wind blows.

River salmon leap upstream,
To the places of their siring,
All the tests of life in the flesh,
With thrashing bodies expiring.

Starving bears lie in wait to
Shorten the fading quest,
Or a moribund swim home,
To a watery boneyard's rest.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“She gave up herself and her identity for security.”
― Leah Myers, Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity

“The salmon is a symbol of prosperity and determination to the Coast Salish tribes, the band of tribes in the Pacific Northwest of which the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe is a part. She defies nature, swimming upstream to provide for the people of the land. Yet she must sacrifice herself to give that abundance to others. Her determination comes at a deep personal cost.”
― Leah Myers, Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity

“Salmon always return to the same stream.”
― Erica Bauermeister, The Scent Keeper

“Ye ken, man laird, while I just dive richt to the bottom o a linn, and set doon there; ye'd think it was the inside o the Fairy Hill. Trooties, ye ken, and saumon, and they awfu pike, a comin round ye, and they bits o water weeds, waggin aboot like lairch trees in the blast. I mind ae time I stoppit doon nigh aboot half an hour. Maybe no just sae much, ye ken, but time gaes awfu quick when ye're at the bottom o a linn.”
― R.B. Cunninghame Graham, The Scottish Sketches of R.B. Cunninghame Graham

“There is a pot of coarse oat porridge with bilberries, a whole side of smoked salmon on a waney-edged plank and venison black pudding as crumbly as chocolate cake. Nettles are pressed into crispbread like leaves on a frozen pond. A sleigh ride from Lapland, snow falling and faced with the breakfast of my dreams, I spoon cakes of potato and kale onto my plate to eat with slices of beetroot-cured salmon. I drink glowing red lingonberry juice from a shot glass that feels like a transfusion and stir a compote of berries into my yoghurt.”
― Nigel Slater, A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts

“Cassie cut off a piece of the salmon salad toast, making sure to capture a generous heap of greens, capers, and bright orange roe. "This looks amazing," she said before bringing the bite to her mouth. She felt the small beads of roe popping, releasing their bright, briny liquid, which perfectly cut the mayonnaise-rich smoked salmon salad.”
― Emily Arden Wells, Eat Post Like

“I spotted a duo of pouchy handmade raviolis: spinach and ricotta with fresh tomato sauce, and porcini in sage butter. Their fish dish was salmon with a skin so crispy it looked like crackling and their handmade pappardelle was tossed with braised rabbit. They went even more rustic with their desserts, albeit with elevated flavor combinations, like an orange flower torte with pine nuts, and a honey semifreddo with apricot lime sauce.”
― Amy Rosen, Off Menu