Northwest Cooking

SITKA, Alaska
AFTER three days on the ocean, Eric Jordan was weary, and his hat and green rain pants were mottled with fish blood. But he had a jack-o'-lantern grin as he hosed down his boat.

"This is the first time I got three bucks a pound in June, ever," he said as his canvas bag full of slush and glistening, glassy-eyed king salmon was processed on the dock above his boat. "I'm used to selling fish for a dollar something a pound this time of year, and last summer it was 65 cents a pound. It broke my heart."

Hearts are being mended all over Alaska this year. The price of wild king salmon, the premier fish from the Alaskan fishery, is recovering from a lingering low that forced many salmon fishermen off the water.

Cheaper farm-raised salmon have swamped the salmon market since 1988, when they first hit the stores. Worldwide, 1.2 million tons of farmed salmon are sold each year, versus less than a million tons of wild fish. The wild salmon industry could not compete on price alone, when farm-reared fish sold for $4 a pound — wild salmon was $9 a pound in season.

As a result, salmon fishing in Alaska went into a tailspin. The value of fishing permits has declined all over Alaska. Worst hit was Bristol Bay, up north, where the value of a permit went from $200,000 to $20,000.

Mr. Jordan, who fishes with his wife, Sarah, said he believed limits on the salmon catch and limits on logging to protect streams that are nurseries for young fish have paid off. His father fished from the same boat from 1946 until 1965 and only once caught more than 36 fish — that record was 55. "I catch more than that all the time now," Mr. Jordan said, and his best day's catch was 166.

"It's a record run this year," he said. "It's like a dream come true. There's hope for humanity if we can rebuild resources like this."

But natural fluctuations in fish stocks can pose a problem for wild salmon fishing. "Once you create a market, in a couple of years you might not be able to supply it," said Craig Shoemaker, the plant manager for the Seafood Producers Cooperative here.

Salmon fishing is undergoing other changes. No longer do fishermen simply bring in a boatload of salmon, dump it and ship the fish to market.

Now, greater distinctions are being made in the fish that are caught: the species of the fish, what stage of life they are in, what river they come from and how they are caught and handled all matter.

Mr. and Mrs. Jordan get 50 cents a pound more, for example, because they take their catch by trolling, which uses four stainless steel lines with six leaders on each line, with herring or flashy plastic lures called hoochies as bait. The fish are handled individually from the time they are caught until they are boxed.

They are killed in the water, bled on deck and placed in slush bags within minutes. That reduces bruising, keeps scales intact and means firmer flesh than netted fish, which are dumped in the hold of a boat. Instead of staying out for a week, fishermen like Mr. Jordan bring in their catch after three days. And fish that are caught in the ocean — called ocean bright — have a higher oil content and so are worth more than fish heading for fresh water, whose scales turn dark as they get ready to spawn and their energy goes to the production of roe, diminishing flavor. Freezing fish is also becoming more important, as it extends the selling period, and many boats freeze their catch at sea, which helps wild salmon compete with farmed.

Mr. Jordan and his wife are, like many Alaskans, self-confessed salmon snobs. "There's a bouquet of different flavors out there," Mr. Jordan said. "Just like wine." And in a land of plenty, salmon-wise, there are cuts of the fish that Alaskans relish more than others.

"We have a band here in Sitka called Belly Meat," Mrs. Jordan said. "That tells you something."

The New York Times on Wild Salmon:
HEN a restaurant like Esca in New York, where a plate of salmon sells for $28, says it serves only the wild variety, that is not news. When Legal Seafood, a chain of 30 restaurants, adds three wild salmon dishes to its menu, that is. Seventy-five percent of all salmon served at Legal Seafood is now wild, even though the wild dishes cost $5 more.

"Sales of wild salmon had been flat, but this year they have taken off," said Roger S. Berkowitz, the company's chief executive officer. "About 50 percent order it because of fear, 50 percent because they like the taste."

The fear Mr. Berkowitz speaks of was generated by reports warning of contaminants in farmed salmon and the ecological damage fish farms can cause. In January, an article in the journal Science confirmed that farmed salmon has seven times the PCB's and dioxins of wild salmon. While salmon is the most widely eaten fish next to shrimp and canned tuna — its high levels of Omega 3 fatty acids making it especially popular — the article advised that eating farmed salmon be limited to once a month.

After rising for a decade, sales of farmed salmon have fallen, and the wild salmon industry, which had taken a beating in competition with lower-priced farmed fish, is experiencing a small rebound. In the first three months of 2004, imports of farmed salmon were down 10 million pounds, and total sales of farmed fresh fillets were down to $140 million from $158.1 million for the same period last year, according to Howard Johnson of H. M. Johnson and Associates, a market research firm in Jacksonville, Ore. Most farmed salmon sold in the United States comes from abroad.

. . . "From the southeast fisheries, one of the Alaska regions for salmon fishing, the price of king salmon, which is top of the line, was bringing the fishermen $5 to $6 a pound last winter, compared to $2.50 to $3 the year before," Mr. McDowell said. Prices are higher in the winter. "Now," he said, "they are getting $2 a pound. Last year they were getting about $1."

Supermarkets as well as restaurants are eyeing wild salmon with new interest.

Costco, which sells whole wild salmon from time to time, is exploring stocking wild fillets on a regular basis. "There's a lot of resistance to farm raised," said Tim Rose, the company's senior vice president for food and fresh foods. "Sales of farm raised were growing about 10 percent; now they are flat. So we are looking to test the waters on wild salmon in the next 90 days."

A&P supermarkets are selling silverbrite, a fresh wild salmon known as chum. It is less expensive than the better-known coho, chinook or sockeye. Chum and the most common Pacific species, pink, are generally used in patties, frozen fillets or in canned salmon. They are lighter in color, have less fat and are milder in flavor than other wild salmon, more like farmed.

Recently, fresh pink salmon fillets were at Super Fresh, one of the chains owned by A&P, for $2.99 a pound, $3 less per pound than farmed Atlantic salmon. Several of the chains owned by A&P, like Waldbaum's and Food Emporium, offer this variety.

. . . Some farmed salmon producers are fighting back with claims that are causing confusion and mistrust, said Alex Trent, executive director of Salmon of the Americas, an association whose members supply 95 percent of the farmed salmon in the United States. Some farmed salmon is being promoted as organic, even though the government has not established standards for organic fish. Mr. Trent objects to that label.

He said he was particularly worried about claims from one company, Black Pearl, which on Jan. 14 issued a press release saying its farmed salmon has lower levels of PCB's than other farmed or wild salmon. "We do not want to be accused of misleading people about PCB's," Mr. Trent said. "Our levels are down but not like what Black Pearl claims."

. . . Jane Houlihan, the research director for the Environmental Working Group, which published one of the early reports on PCB's in farmed salmon, said Black Pearl made its claims based on 12 PCB chemicals rather than the 100 cited in the Science article. Black Pearl subsequently acknowledged that and has removed the PCB claim from its Web site.

Ms. Houlihan added that Black Pearl "is trying to do a lot of good things," raising the salmon without chemicals and without antibiotics. "They just need to do total PCB testing," she said.

Whole Foods markets, a large retailer of natural and organic foods, sell Black Pearl fish alongside wild salmon.

"We chose those that are the best we can get," said Margaret Wittenberg, the vice president of public affairs at Whole Foods. "We choose companies trying to do something a little bit better using better practices, trying to offer consumers a better choice."