Salmon fish in Kamchatka
Delicious Salmon
This article is more about gastronomic treasures of Kamchatka and will be very interesting for gourmets and lovers of seafood! If you want to read more about activities and the nature of Kamchatka, the article Kamchatka. One day on the edge of the Earth will be very interesting for you!
Kamchatka is a region which cuisine has a plenty of delicious seafood that is very cheap. For example the fish – salmon. We all usually think that salmon is the name of a particular fish. In fact, salmon is a family of fishes that includes species such as pink salmon, saffron cod, chinook salmon, coho salmon, sockeye salmon, etc. And each type of fish has its own special flavor, color and price. The fact is that producers of canned food and sellers use this fact that we, unlike people in the Far East and Kamchatka, don’t know the nuances and with the brand “salmon” often sell us simple pink or chum salmon – the most simple and cheap fish of the salmon, because its meat is the most dry. Chinook salmon, for example, is much more appreciated, because its meat is more fatty. Its meat has bright orange color. Meat of sockeye salmon – is medium fat, but the most beautiful – bright red color.
Red caviar in Kamchatka
Red caviar
Caviar of various fishes is also different. Coho salmon’s caviar – large and pale-red, closer to orange, and has specific light “fishy” taste. For example, caviar of sockeye salmon is smaller, has bright color and light noble bitterness. People here also divide it for “sea” and “river” caviar, and it is impossible to sell river-caviar instead of the sea-caviar here. Sea-caviar – is a caviar, produced from fish caught in the sea. It is the more fresh and bursts easily in the mouth, because of its very thin membrane. Every year thousands of salmons go to spawn in the rivers and reach the sources of the rivers. This is a very difficult way that fish really crawls on its belly at the end. That is why at the beginning of the river, caviar’s membrane becomes more thick, not to burst inside of fishes belly before it will spawn.
Salmons are spawning
The taste of such caviar is more thick and sometimes it doesn’t bursts in your mouth, but rolls between the teeth like plastic. This is the “river-caviar” 🙂 Also at this moment meat and caviar start to lose their color, because the pigment comes out painting the body of the salmon in a bright crimson color. The spawning period is the period of the feast of bears who are not gourmets, and they enjoy catching of tired fish 🙂 However, people in Kamchatka don’t eat such fish and caviar.
Bear eats salmon fish
Prices for caviar and fish in Kamchatka
From the gastronomical point of view, Kamchatka is a very strange place 🙂 There are so many varieties of fish and caviar, and it’s so cheap that locals will prefer to eat fried chicken, or a vegetable salad than a salmon steak or sandwich with caviar. The price of raw fish I don’t remember. But the smoked and salted salmons from Chum to Chinook is around 5-10 dollars per kilo. A kilo of red caviar, depending on the fish, is from 13 to 20 dollars. And this is the price of the finished product in the store! Many locals usually go even further and buy raw fish and caviar directly from fishermen who sell fish for 5-8 dollars per one fish, and the cost of caviar is reduced in 2 times – around 5-10 dollars per kilo. So if you ever seen photos in the internet, where man drinks vodka and eats caviar without bread straight from the bowl – it is most likely a photo from Kamchatka or other regions of the Far East 🙂
Daily dinner in Kamchatka 🙂
And if we usually prefer to eat salmon as steaks or in soups, local people from Kamchatka Peninsula often cooked salmon meatballs or even dumplings 🙂 By the way, the salmon dumplings are awesome! I definitely recommend you to try 🙂 However, if you would like to buy vegetables and fruits, here they have astronomical price, because nothing is growing in Kamchatka, and all the vegetables and fruits are delivered by aircrafts.
Kamchatka King Crab
What else do you need to try in Kamchatka? Of course, the famous Kamchatka King Crab!
Huge king crab
It is the largest, most desirable and expensive crab in the world! It is served in many VIP restaurants of the world for a huge money, but here its price is several times cheaper and you can just buy it in the market and cook at home 🙂
Of course the cuisine of Kamchatka is not limited by seafood. The huge forests around Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy are inhabited with a lot of wild animals such, as deer, elks, roes, wild boars or hares. Also in these forests there is an incredible amount of berries and mushrooms, however, fish and seafood remain as a top-brand of Kamchatka 🙂
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Author – Dmitry Doronin
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