zen.org Communal Weblog

Just back from Nantes, where a good time was had by both, and thought I’d make a post about some smoked salmon that Jim had as a starter.

Now, smoked salmon is not a rarity in our household, and I’ve even had it fairly often when eating out, but this smoked salmon was the ur-smoked salmon - it was “welcome to the mother-fish” time.

Within its succulent walls your tongue could track the route that smoke had swirled around the fish’s body; the taste was so clearly defined, you could roll the history of the flavouring process back and taste the individual knots of wood that been used up during the smoking. It was like realising that previously you had only been eating in 2-D, and now whoosh! - here was a third dimension of flavour.

It wasn’t the strength of the taste, it wasn’t particularly strong in fact, it was more the precision and the degree of definition that it possessed. I hadn’t imagined that a taste could be like that…