The Dinner Files

Salmon carpaccio with fennel relish. I know a lot about this dish. As I was eating it I had the pleasure of telling my dining companions that, in fact, I had caught the fish.

“How psyched are you?” and other enthusiastic confirmations followed, despite the fact that the Cordovans I was sitting with all eat salmon they catch themselves on a regular basis (about twice a week was the average in my informal poll, but that’s just counting dinner; if you add in lunch the weekly average more than doubles due to the apparent popularity of salmon burgers).

I should clarify one teeny tiny fact: When I say that I caught the fish I really mean that Thea Thomas, a Cordova salmon fisherman, caught it while I was on her boat.

I’d like to say I helped, but that would be a gross exaggeration. “Didn’t hinder too terribly much” is probably a more accurate assessment. While Thea donned some intense rubber gear and worked in the driving rain and freezing wind, I poked my head out of the heated cabin every now and again to try and get a decent picture without my camera getting too wet. In doing so I often asked if she could hold still for just a moment. And another moment while I wiped the lens. And another moment while I adjusted the angle. Oh, and just one more because the light seems a wee bit better at this part of the ocean an inch from where we were before.

At one point I asked her if she normally fished in such weather. To her credit the expression that betrayed how naive my question was barely flitted across her face before she said that yes, when the fishing was open and good she did indeed work in the rain. She did not add “silly city girl” to the end of her answer, which, in retrospect, was an impressive sign of her friendliness and general good character.

Thea, like many other Copper River salmon fisherman, uses gillnets. Like most of her cohort, she works alone (although her delightfully polite young nephew visits every summer to work as a deckhand for a bit). Unlike most of her cohort who spend their fishing days on gun-metal gray vessels with small cabins in which they often live for weeks at a time, Thea works on a cheery and brilliantly blue boat with a small cabin in which she often lives for weeks at a time.

The salmon she catches – the season moves from the king salmon in May through sockeyes and then cohos (called silvers by those who fish them) before the season ends in September – are trying to get up into the Copper River to spawn. And who can blame them? It’s a little chilly but otherwise looks like a lovely place to raise a family.

They have lots of fat built up for the fresh water journey, during which they stop eating and use a lot of energy (the Copper River is long and difficult to swim up even for a fish driven to swim up it, hence the prized richness and quality of Copper Rive Salmon). Once they spawn, they die. As they go upstream they start looking like, well, like they are going to die. Bits of their flesh starts flaking off. Sections of their bodies turn ghostly white. (In a perfect-circle-of-nature way, their rotting flesh will serve as a protein source for the hatchlings they die to spawn. That might sound a bit horrific, but don’t we all feed off our parents in one way or another?)

Out in the Prince William Sound and Gulf of Alaska, however, they’re still in salt water and fattening themselves up. So Thea set out her net, let it sit, hauled it back, and started picking off salmon (and a few flounder that were promptly returned to their ocean home) as they came in.

Then she posed for a picture that – and I’m just guessing here – isn’t a normal part of the routine as she cut the salmon’s gills to bleed it.

Her net was still coming in, there was work to do. The bleeding salmon was put on the floor, where it slid to my feet. Aggressive predator no more.

We brought our tiny catch of three sockeyes back to Cordova and had them hand-filleted by an expert, who can fillet a salmon faster than I can shoot with my camera, at Copper River Seafoods.

[Side note: Did you know there are machines that can fillet fish? I did not and found that fact fascinating. They do not, I was assured, do as good a job as a person, they just do it faster. Custom orders, fillets for smoking, and other situations where looks and super-duper premium quality matter – such as my dinner – are still filleted by hand.]

From there the salmon went to the chefs preparing dinner who chose to pound the living daylights out of it to make carpaccio. To their credit, the fish was so fresh and well-handled, without bruising or damage, that it was perfect to take advantage of that way.

[Another side note: I've heard from many experts that salmon should be frozen if you're going to eat it raw because of concerns about parasitic worms that the freezing kills. So far I appear to be parasite-free. Fingers crossed!]

My beef, so to speak, with the salmon carpaccio was the pounding. To be more specific, it was the noise from the pounding. It was loud, steady, distracting and it took place less than 15 feet and one all together too thin wall away from where I sat trying to follow a detailed technical discussion of cutting-edge fish bleeding practices on one side of me while asking questions (questions that would qualify me for enrollment in Salmon 101, Fishing 101, and Alaska 101 courses if such a placement exam were given) of a very cheerful and patient soul.

I learned this about fishermen: When they work, they work hard. Most of them I met were obsessive about the quality of the fish they caught and went to great pains to treat them well.

And then there are the boats. These things are as neat as pins. Clean as whistles. Exceptions exist, I’m sure, but I didn’t see any. They are named and cared for and tinkered with and, if my experience is any example, pointed out in the harbor with pride to new acquaintances. I kept up my end of such conversations with this question: Is it a bow-picker or a stern-picker? Feel free to use it as you see fit.

That salmon carpaccio began as a 4-lb. sockeye salmon headed for the Copper River. It was caught at Strawberry Flats by Thea on her fiberglass bow-picker in some gnarly freezing rain. Ireneo filleted it at Bill and Pip and Scott’s place. Adam and Dan and Trevor pounded, cut, and plated it. I think Marley helped. Beth ordered the fennel. I ate it while laughing with Bert and Mike and Robert.

All of that is to naught, of course, unless it’s tasty. Food can have all the backstory in the world, but if it doesn’t taste good you’re still not going to want to eat it.

I ate all my carpaccio. And would have happily eaten seconds. And thirds.

[Final side note: I don't want to forget Cheryl, who took the carpaccio picture at top and so without whom this post could not exist.]