Eating Salmon

Eating salmon, I taste of the sea

and something of the mystery

of the sea—

Freshly caught

is this cut steak of wild California king salmon I’m eating,

taken directly from the perfect waters of our Pacific,

perhaps from our Bay of Monterey itself,

perhaps caught just yesterday even, brought as whole fish

to the market—

Just yesterday, perhaps,

this delicious, deep pink, dill-sprinkled salmon, with lemon,

I’m forking into bite-sized pieces,

was itself feeding on shrimp or smaller fishes,

like herring or anchovies or young rockfish;

and it required those cold Pacific waters, plenty of cold,

oxygenated waters,

to have matured to such a point of wild perfection.

This wild king,

probably the best in all the world there is

—plenty certainly

would make that claim—,

is now this evening my nourishment, rich in protein, lots

of the essential fatty acid Omega-3, vitamins A, D, & B vitamins,

& even minerals…

And so, as I enjoy eating this salmon,

I imagine, by way of a different kind of assimilation,

the story I’ve gathered about the salmon,

the wild king—

Much further up in the Northwest,

I’ve learned it is also known as

chinook salmon,

after the Chinook Indians of the Northwest coast,

whose lives were so thoroughly interwoven with it—

Salmon, we understand, figured significantly in their tribal spirituality,

considered by them even sacred.

Or, as the king

is also called in some parts, up in Canada,

spring salmon,

which I assume would make sense,

as the season for them generally starts in the spring—

Here, in California, beginning of salmon season is a big deal

for fishermen,

traditionally beginning May 1st.

The king is most prized & is largest of the 5 Pacific species

of salmon,

& we, in California,

get it wild, direct & fresh caught, quite abundant it still is,

—at least, that is what we hear—,

we are so lucky—

Wild Atlantic salmon, they say, is almost a thing of the past.

Those on the East Coast who don’t eat the farmed variety,

get their wild—frozen or fresh, shipped—

from our Pacific.

Oh, we, too, can eat the farmed, of course,

it’s a thriving business, now that people want & expect salmon

in the markets & restaurants year round;

availability of salmon—our world is such today—

is no longer dependent

on the natural fishing cycle of the seasons.

Farmed salmon, however,

raised in utter confinement in floating net-pens their entire lives,

producing enormous accumulations of waste that threaten

the surrounding marine waters,

readily susceptible to disease, given antibiotics,

tested to be now high in contaminants, so that health warnings

must be issued,

cannot maintain, it is thought, the long-term genetic stamina

that is challenged in a bio-diverse, wild environment,

their taste, their texture, even their color, turning out

not quite the same.

—Oh, let’s just say there is something of controversy here,

for there are some, experts among them, who do consider it,

despite all that,

just fine.

So the farmed variety,

now, always year round on the market

—our world is such today—,

is there for those who want it

—and usually pay a little less.

How remarkable, in contrast,

the wild king salmon, and the remarkable stages of its natural,

wild life cycle—

Adults, at the proper time,

all the way up the coast, up into Canada & into Alaska,

seemingly setting out against the impossible,

no longer even eating for themselves but using up

their own stored fat,

find & fight their way up against the current

of often arduous, white-water cascading rivers & streams

—they are known to leap quite well—,

& are prey along the way to bears, eagles & river otters,

& other predators,

& are caught, too, by our own sports fishermen,

& now with all the obstacles of civilization’s encroachment

to overcome,

particularly the dams built

—fish ladders have been put in place

the salmon must leap to climb & climb—,

single-mindedly, compelled by the ancient urge to spawn,

they find their way back,

back to the freshwater streams that are their own origins,

each stream having its own particular “smell,” as they say,

which the salmon apparently, instinctively,

somehow remember—

And once they spawn, they die.

Their eggs

laid in stream bed rock & gravel “nests,”

eggs by the thousands which will hatch during the winter,

the newly born first known as alevins,

with yoke sac still attached,

live in their underwater nest their first weeks,

to then become fry, venturing further out, eating insect larvae

& tiny crustaceans,

& then by early summer they begin their journey downstream,

their ancestral return to the sea,

& in the process,

undergo internal bodily changes called

smolting,

that will now allow them to live in the salt waters

of the sea;

they are at this stage called smolts.

Born in fresh water, living their adult life in salt water,

& returning to fresh once again to spawn—

they are anadromous, the biologist says.

And the young salmon smolts

arriving at the coast

first live in estuaries as they adjust themselves

in the partial sea salt of brackish water,

feeding on crustaceans & smaller fish,

& then keeping to the closer-to-shore bays & coves,

until, upon fattening up & getting larger,

they migrate further out to meet the challenge of ocean,

living for years feeding well, these predatory fish

of the sea—

Living for 5 to 7 years,

developing their characteristic hooked snout,

there comes a point when their many-million-year-old genetic clock

tells them

it’s time

to return to origins once again,

wherever & however far

those birth streams might be—

Hundreds, if not thousands, of miles

they travel

in their return to the streams of their origins.

And out of the thousands of eggs

possibly fertilized

in a nest,

perhaps only two adult fish will mature & survive

the travails of their life world

to return to fulfill the cycle

of their species’ life history.

Yet,

the wild king as we so proudly call it

are perhaps, though, not all

so utterly wild anymore—

State fish hatcheries release billions of fry

into the wild waters of the sea every year

—an obvious boost to salmon populations,

hinting as to their noted, still sustained abundance—,

but, then, not exactly can these fish be considered

totally wild—

And so the pristine wild

& the “free range,” so-called, not quite totally wild, salmon,

their lives must intersect, out there,

in the sea—

And even their farmed cousins,

now subject to genetic modification, often escape

their confinement

& swim out to the freedom of the sea—

Do they ever interbreed? Are the wild salmon genetically

compromised?

Are they weakened? Or do origins ensure their segregation?

Are the wild salmon bullied by the new, more aggressive,

super-salmon?

And issues are raised of possible disease, their contamination;

now,

there’s global warming of concern…

And many predators, like the voracious seals

& sea lions,

do find

wild salmon to their liking—

Salmon, feeding on others, are themselves prey

at all stages of their life’s way.

And we do fish & fish for them,

all competing for that delicious taste

of the salmon—

Can their numbers continue to be sustained?

The salmon, unfortunately, cannot be said to be

doing all that well—

Look at what happened

in the Atlantic.

Yes,

people do want salmon—

And I must admit, it’s quite a pleasure

to eat salmon,

there is something of the memory of the ocean’s

complexity

in its taste,

but the pleasure today is a much more

conscious pleasure—

The salmon do tell us a story,

and a telling story of changes they are.

July 2004