A HARTE APPETITE: SALMON'S LIFE JOURNEY WORTH THE TASTE

Label from the Howling Wolf Brand Salmon exporters.

Ready for a fish story? I've recently returned from a cruise through Alaska's Inside Passage during which I visited a salmon hatchery in Ketchikan, the salmon capital of the world, and renewed my respect for those beautiful, persistent and tasty creatures.

Not that I haven't always loved seafood, particularly salmon. I can identify completely with that Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that has Calvin musing, "I don't understand this business about death. If we're just going to die, what's the point of living?" And Hobbes replies, "Well, there's seafood."

You don't have to be a feline to be hooked on salmon. A recent issue of Nation's Restaurant News reports it is a popular item at restaurants around the country. Probably versatility is one reason. Salmon can be fixed in a myriad of ways: poached, smoked, grilled, broiled, baked, steamed, pan-fried, cured as in Scandinavian gravlax or eaten raw as sushi.

Bob Blumer, who calls himself the Surreal Gourmet, even has a recipe for preparing salmon in the dishwasher! He takes salmon fillets, seals them in aluminum foil packets and places them on the top rack of the dishwasher for a full cycle. Blumer swears this produces perfect salmon every time and suggests you run a load of dishes simultaneously. Lemon-scented dishwasher detergent, of course, is strongly recommended.

Though easy to prepare and extraordinary to taste, what is truly remarkable about salmon is its life cycle, completed against overwhelming odds by means not yet fully understood.

Salmon are anadromous, which means they start out in freshwater, migrate to saltwater and return to freshwater to spawn. Miraculously, salmon manage unerringly to return to the stream of their birth, as many as five or six years later, to lay and fertilize their eggs. It's a particularly daunting mating ritual even for fish who, as humorist Dave Barry notes, "live underwater, which is a terrible place to have sex because virtually anywhere you lie down there will be stinging crabs and large quantities of little fish staring at you with buggy little eyes."

The timing of this process is so precise it can be predicted to within a few days and variations of a week are considered extreme. North American salmon make the circular journey in a counterclockwise direction while Asian salmon go clockwise. As they get closer to their destination, schools of salmon travel up to 90 miles a day in the face of enormous obstacles in the way of rapids and waterfalls.

Once at the spawning grounds, the fish pair off, and courtship ensues. In what is typically a monogamous relationship, the male nudges the female who digs a nest with her tail and deposits the brilliant, translucent red eggs (salmon roe like other caviar is a delicacy) that are simultaneously fertilized by the male. The process is repeated until all eggs, somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000 a female, are deposited. Only a small proportion of the eggs, as low as 1 percent, will hatch, the rest eaten by fish or birds or merely washed downstream. The survivors then migrate back to the sea, a journey as long as 1,800 miles on the Yukon River running through Alaska, and the cycle begins over again.

Just how salmon accomplish this incredible feat is unclear, but scientists think it has something to do with their keen sense of smell. Actually, keen is probably an understatement. As photographer Brad Matsen notes in his book, "Reaching Home: Pacific Salmon, Pacific People," a salmon's snout is so sensitive it could sniff out one drop of vermouth in half a million barrels of gin! And sure enough, experiments reveal that when the salmon's nostrils are plugged, it gets lost.

Given the mysterious life cycle of the salmon, it's not surprising that the fish took on spiritual significance in the culture of Native American peoples. Many tribes actually thought of themselves as salmon and called themselves the salmon people. In Northwest Indian mythology, salmon are believed to take on human form and live in a big house under the sea before transforming themselves into fish. The Tlingit tribe of Alaska depicts salmon in its family crests.

The first known record of salmon, a picture carved on a reindeer bone some 10,000 or 15,000 years ago, was discovered in southern France. The ancient Romans, who stopped in France on their way to conquer Britain, first saw salmon vaulting in the Garonne River there and called the fish the leaper. Our English word, salmon, is thus derived from the Latin salire, meaning to leap. Over the years salmon became an increasingly important trade item. During the 18th century, Scottish salmon were valued more highly than beefsteak, even by Londoners. Widening demand, alas, has thinned the supply of salmon. At one time the fish were so plentiful their spawning runs caused riverbanks to overflow and sometimes upset small boats, but today's runs are only a quarter of what they have historically been, despite the introduction of aquaculture, as practiced at the hatchery I visited in Ketchikan.

Though our appetite for salmon may not be entirely healthy for the fish, it has been shown to be good for human beings. Salmon are a source of Omega-3 oils, which appear to have a role in thinning blood and preventing heart attacks, and they are also high in protein and low in cholesterol.

Alaskan salmon make up 95 percent of the Pacific salmon sold in the United States. There are five species, with the king salmon the largest and usually the most expensive species. The king salmon averages 22 pounds but can weigh more than 100 pounds. Its meat is softer in texture than other species and ranges in color from deep salmon to white.

The sockeye salmon is the salmon that loves a lake, spending one to two years of its life there. Its meat is firm and deep salmon in color. The coho or silver salmon is smaller than the king but larger than the sockeye with lighter meat than the latter. The pink salmon is often used for canning and is the smallest of all species. The chum salmon when canned is the least expensive species. Its meat is lighter in color than other varieties and in Alaska is used as dog food.

Regardless of species, salmon are delicious, a fact I confirmed while cruising Alaskan waters. In an effort to get my share of the more than 800 pounds of fish served daily on our ship, I sometimes ate salmon three times a day. (Smoked salmon at breakfast makes even the plainest bagel something regal.) Yet I never tired of it. I wholeheartedly concur with Pliny who observed in 77 A.D. that salmon are preferred to all fish that swim in the sea. Try the following recipes to see if you don't agree. It's the least we can do considering all the trouble salmon go to keeping us supplied.

Alaska Salmon Romanoff

This recipe, based on one from the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, celebrates Alaska's Russian heritage. Our 49th state, after all, was a part of Russia until we bought it in 1867 for $7.2 million, literally pennies an acre.

Ingredients:

6 ounces dry pasta

1 cup yogurt

1/2 package (3/4 oz.) dry ranch style dressing mix

1 can (7.5 oz.) salmon, drained and flaked

1 can (4 oz.) sliced mushrooms, drained

3 tablespoons chopped green onions

1/2 teaspoon dill weed

Directions:

Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and combine with rest of ingredients, mixing well. Spoon into buttered 1 1/2-quart microwave-safe dish and cook on medium-high power for 5-6 minutes until heated through. Stir and serve. Serves 4.

Foil Baked Salmon

This wonderful dish, inspired by a recipe from the Los Angeles Times, was first served to us by friends in California, Mary and Seiji Yoshioka. Served over freshly cooked soba noodles laced with sesame oil, it makes an impressive presentation. As guests open their packets at the table, they are greeted by the most delightful aroma.

Ingredients:

3 teaspoons instant soup stock

2 cups water

5 tablespoons soy sauce

3 tablespoons rice wine

4 salmon fillets (6 oz. each)

Salt and pepper

6 thinly sliced green onions

1-inch piece ginger root, peeled and grated

1/2 pound sliced shitake mushrooms

Cilantro leaves

Directions:

Dissolve powdered soup stock in water adding soy sauce and rice wine. Place each fillet on a large piece of aluminum foil lightly coated with cooking spray. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with onions and ginger. Arrange mushrooms around fillets, sprinkle with 2 to 3 tablespoons soup mixture, and top with crushed cilantro leaves. Seal foil packets, place on baking sheet and bake at 450 degrees for about 10 minutes. Pass remaining soup mixture for sauce. Serves 4.

Salmon Chowder

On a chilly August day in Juneau, the only state capital inaccessible by car or rail, I discovered it's perfectly natural to eat chowder in summer. This recipe is from "The Salmon Cookbook," a work spawned, so to speak, by author Jerry Dennon's experiences as an aquaculturist.

Ingredients:

1 can (15.5 oz.) salmon

2-3 cups milk

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup chopped onion

3 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

Dash of pepper

1 bay leaf

2 medium potatoes

1 tablespoon parsley

Directions:

Peel and cook potatoes; cut into cubes. Drain salmon, remove skin and bones, reserving liquid. Add enough milk to salmon liquid to make 2 3/4 cups. Melt butter and saute onion. Blend in flour, salt and pepper. Add liquid and bay leaf. Cook and stir until thick and bubbly. Break salmon into chunks and add to liquid along with potatoes and parsley. Heat through and serve. Serves 4.

Roasted Salmon with Mustard Crust

This is probably my favorite way to fix salmon. The recipe is one of more than a half dozen great salmon recipes in the venerable "Eating Well Cookbook" published by the late magazine of the same name.

Ingredients:

4 (6 oz.) salmon steaks, 1" thick

Salt and pepper

3 tablespoons flavored mustard

Lemon juice

2 teaspoons fresh dill, chopped

Directions:

Place a cast-iron skillet over high heat until smoking. Rinse and pat dry salmon and season with salt and pepper and spread with half the mustard. Place steaks, mustard side down, in the skillet and cook for two minutes without turning. Spread remaining mustard on tops of steaks, turn them over and place entire skillet in a 500-degree oven. Bake 6 to 8 minutes or until done. Squeeze lemon juice over steaks, sprinkle with dill, and serve. Serves 4.

Got a culinary question you'd like to ask or an idea you'd like to see treated in this column? Send your suggestions to A Harte Appetite, c/o The Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, MO., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semovm.semo.edu.