Smoked salmon is it? For the rich only? Well, Mrs Beeton, the Queen of the Kitchen writes in her Book of Household Management (1861): "Fish is constantly smoked and dried, and thus prepared, it forms a large part of the food of our town poor." Well, the drying of fish on the roof is not unknown in this country, when conditions permit. And in Iceland a friend has seen the heads of cod, on trestle tables, drying out for God knows what customers.
But Mrs Beeton's poor were hardly at salmon. In several books of queries submitted to the English Field, not one mention as far as can be gleaned, is made to smoked salmon. And they go back to the 1850s. But there is, in one, a description of making your own smokery for trout, out of a bottomless barrel. There is a preparation time of cleaning, drying, rubbing in salt; and pepper and two days of further treatment before you hang - the fish over a fire of oak or ash sawdust. You smoke the fish for 24 hours to keep it for two or three weeks, and three days for longer. But no mention of smoking salmon. Mrs Beeton has pickled salmon and potted salmon and other routine dishes. No smoking. So, is it a new fad or fashion? Hardly. But it must always have been left to the professionals.
How much of the smoked salmon now sold comes from fresh wild fish, netted at sea or caught by rod in rivers and lakes? More: and more anglers seem to get any salmon they catch smoked for a party or for a present. And while anglers may be grumpy about this last season, the Moy certainly gave whopping results and other anglers in Mayo did not do so badly.
From Burrishoole, the fishery and salmon research agency of Furness, Newport, Mayo comes an ecstatic Newsletter, all delight. "Following a season of breath taking excitement at Burrishoole, we can look back with great pride and satisfaction at the records broken by the Fishery in 1996; largest fish ever recorded, greatest number of anglers ever to visit the fishery; largest number of multi sea winter salmon ever caught at the fishery; largest average size ever recorded from the fishery; highest proportion of wild salmon and grilse taken on a catch and release base; a total catch of 295 salmon (third best ever) and 125 sea trout. A truly remarkable year". And, of course, the many caught and released will add to future years' re entries. "A 30 lb + fish on the fly in 97 is a real possibility."
Cheers for Ken Whelan and his colleagues. And he, by the way, thinks smoked salmon may have come to us down from the north: from Scotland and beyond up to Scandinavia.