The end of the year is a time for celebration. It can mean spending time with family and friends, reflecting on the past 12 months and dreaming of the ones ahead. It can bring major change or more of the same. Yet no matter how Atlantic Canadians decide to spend the crossover from one year to the next, food almost always figures prominently. One of the hands-down favourites on the East Coast is smoked salmon.
Every year thousands of hors d'oeuvres are made and enjoyed, many of them including this Atlantic delicacy served cold, delicately sliced and artfully arranged. Yet this delightful treat can also be enjoyed in dishes such as bisques, chowders, quiches, pasta, salads and dips, as well as on pizzas and bagels.
Smoked salmon has gone from being an expensive gourmet item to an affordable treat, in large part due to the explosive growth of the global farmed-salmon industry. In Canada, salmon aquaculture began in the 1970s. Today, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canada has become the world's fourth-largest farmed-salmon producer, operating year round. On the East Coast, salmon farming began in New Brunswick's Bay of Fundy, becoming one of the province's most important food industries. Eventually Nova Scotia and Newfoundland would also get on-board.
Salmon smokers in the Atlantic provinces have mastered the art of preparing and presenting their product. For example, I defy anyone to walk in the door of Oven Head Salmon Smokers in New Brunswick, smell the wonderful odour of cold-smoked salmon, and not want to eat some immediately. Preferably with a nice glass of wine and a multigrain baguette. Or just off their fingers.
Oven Head Salmon Smokers, located on the gorgeous Passamaquoddy Bay at Bethel, New Brunswick, went into business 17 years ago, the happy result of having more fish than Debbie and Joe Thorne knew what to do with. Debbie's brother Laurie Pendleton was raising farmed salmon at the time, and used to bring fish to his relatives regularly. This got the Pendletons and the Thornes talking about all the possible products using their fish.
"Joe and Laurie started playing around with the salmon, worked at cold-smoking it, and talking to chefs from the better restaurants in the local area," Debbie says. "After we started sending samples to them, the chefs would give us ideas about how to adjust the smoking process, and then it came to the point where they said, 'You've got it, leave it the way it is, it's terrific!' And so Oven Head Salmon Smokers was born.
Today the company has grown from operating one small smoker to having four large, British-made smokers filled with salmon. But Joe and Debbie, who now solely operate the business with half a dozen full-time employees and several part-time and summer workers, remain very hands-on with all aspects of the business. "We say that our company is small but mighty," says Debbie. "We don't want to get big, big, big because we don't want our product to ever go downhill in quality. If we get too big and have too many employees, we won't know exactly how the fish is handled."
Smoking fish is done by one of two processes. Debbie explains that the temperature in hot smoking is much higher than in cold smoking, where the temperature cannot go above 70°F. "Hot smoking makes the fish more like it's been baked. It's very flaky and best served in hunks because it can't be sliced," she says. "Cold smoked is partially cooked, the way a cured ham is. It's considered a higher-end product than is hot smoked because it's so versatile." Cold smoked salmon is silky in texture, rich in colour, and usually served sliced very thinly, making it ideal for doing fancy presentations with hors d'oeuvres or other delicacies.
Everything at Oven Head is done by hand, from the soaking of fish in Joseph's salt brine to putting the fish in the smokers to pinboning, skinning, slicing and packaging the finished products. The process of cold smoking begins with whole fresh salmon from local sea farms. The Thornes get their fish from several different sea farms, depending on who has the size of fish they need for their orders. "We used farmed salmon because there simply aren't enough local salmon to fill our orders," says Debbie. "We make sure our fish are good, and any we aren't satisfied with we send back. We use 10 to 12 pound salmon, young, firm fish with no bruising or other damage, and get two, two-to-three pound fillets of smoked fish at the end of the process."
After filleting, the fish are soaked in a salt and water brine for a few hours following which they are placed in the smokers to dry for eight hours, then are smoked in pure maple chips for between 30 to 40 hours. After being removed from the smokers, the fish are chilled to make them easier to work with, then are skinned and the pinbones are removed by careful inspection, and then the fillets are sliced and packaged in assorted sizes.
Very little of the salmon is wasted in the process of smoking. The skins and trimmings go to a bear hunting guide operator in the area, while leftover trimmings from slicing are used to make Oven Head's very popular paté, a special recipe of cream cheese, lemon, horseradish and other ingredients.
Another popular product is salmon jerky, which uses the trimmings nearest the fish's spine, which would otherwise be wasted. The trimmed portions are soaked in a teriyaki marinade, baked at a higher temperature than with the regular smoking process, sliced, and baked again. Although the Thornes try to have jerky available at all times of the year, Debbie explains that since the smokers have to be at a higher temperature than with their cold smoked fillets, they are only able to make jerky when they are not too busy with their most popular products.
The holiday season is one of the busiest for business. "At Christmastime we simply can't fill all our orders," Debbie says. "We have to wait until January and even February before we get caught up." In mid-September, she already had plenty of orders from previous customers who decided to pre-order for this Christmas.
The company does a big mail order business as well as catering. By the main part of the holiday season they find themselves doing up to 500 fillets a week. The small retail area of the shop also sees plenty of customers and tourists travelling through the area, including bus tours.
Debbie confirms that part of the appeal of cold smoked salmon is its popularity at parties. "Everyone wants it for parties," she says. "It's served more or less as an hors d'oeuvre, and customers like to have the whole side because it presents better that way."
She herself suggests serving it with rye or pumpernickel bread, capers and cream cheese. "You can make lovely sandwiches, or do up flat bread with cream cheese and salmon." She says it's also excellent with scrambled eggs, and one of the signature dishes at the Algonquin Hotel in St. Andrews is a breakfast dish of hash brown potatoes featuring Oven Head salmon. Though many people may just opt to enjoy its wonderful, rich flavour by itself. Right off their fingers.