flavor
COOKING WITH BROOK
A Taste of the Coast
MISO GLAZED SALMON PROVIDES PERFECT SEGUE INTO SEAFOOD. BY FOOD EDITOR BROOK HARLAN • PHOTOS BY L.G. PATTERSON
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etting people to eat salmon in the Midwest can be hard. I know, I grew up in the Midwest. As a kid, my diet mostly consisted of Midwestern food, until I was about 5 or 6 and we went to California to visit a relative. My parents told us that they didn't have hamburgers or hot dogs on the coast, so we had to eat shrimp, fish and other sea-dwelling things. Little did they know, this would back-
fire. Once we got back, we still wanted seafood, which of course was much more expensive in the Midwest. Sometimes, people are turned off by seafood because of a one-time overly fishy-smelling experience. A strong fishy smell typically means seafood that is ending or past its prime. I vividly remember taking a tour of a culinary school in New England when I was 17 and was asked by a chef what the inside of a day-old whole
salmon smelled like. “Fish!” I replied. The chef then told me it smelled like a fresh cut melon. I can imagine that I had a face of disbelief because the chef then picked up a whole 20-pound salmon and asked me to come up to smell it. I stuck my nose so far into the salmon, as I was sure that the farther I stuck my nose, the more of a chance I would have to catch a fishy smell. Alas, the only smell that I could INSIDE COLUMBIA MAY/JUNE 2022 45
