April 2007,,,I was in the local huge Costco the other day and noticed some new frozen salmon called 'keta' so i asked the store manager what kind of salmon it was, wild or fresh, atlantic or pacific, one of the 5 pacific varieties,,,
He said he did not know. I asked a chef at an expensive seafood restaurant in Silicon Valley and he did not know. I asked a fish monger at Safeway and he did not know. So i went to the Columbia Encyclopedia and it says it is more commonly called "Chum" or "Dog" pacific salmon!! No wonder Costco does not call it by its more common name !!
Atlantic salmon is genus 'Salmo'. Pacific salmon is genus 'Oncorhynchus'. Of the 5 north Pacific salmon varieties, King/Chinook/Quinnat is the "most important commercially" at an average weight of 20lbs ,,,up to about 100lbs. If you spend all that money flying to Alaska to catch one ,as a non-resident they may allow you to only catch 2 fish/season,,,so that fish is limited. Forget about it.
Then there is the one i think tastes the best, especially from the mouth of the Copper River, and that is the Red/Sockeye/Blueback, n. pacific salmon with very dark color ,good fish oil fatty taste, and last time i was in Alaska fishing you could catch 6 or 8 a day so guess there are alot of these.
Next is the Pink/Humpback n. pacific salmon with very pale pink meat and tastes horrid, especially if you paid all that money like i did to fly to Alaska and catch them fresh.
Had to feed them all to the cat.
The fifth variety of n. pacific salmon after Chum/Dog/Keta,,,and King/Chinook/Quinnat,,,and Red/Sockeye/Blueback,,,and Pink/Humpback,,,
is the Silver/Coho n. pacific salmon and it is a terrific surface fighting fish at the mouth of its spawning rivers !! And tastes delicious too , especially when you can spend all that money to fly far to Alaska and catch ,what , 6 per day. A great sport fish !!
When i go to a fish market or restaurant nowadays and ask 'is this wild or farmed salmon?', they always answer 'wild'. So how big from zero is the fine for lying about food and salmon ??
