THE ANCIENT ROOTS OF SMOKED SALMON

This dish has been part of indigenous tradition for centuries

- GENEVIEVE KO

Somewhere along the social media food highway this past summer, there was a detour to horror.

Influencer after influencer held maple-shel-lacked sides of smoked salmon close to the camera, the thick slab of vermilion flesh opaque and shiny as plastic unlike the gossamer ribbons of lox destined for bagels.

Self-described smoked salmon girlies pinched off pieces, tugging them from the skin, then took wide-eyed bites, some licking and chewing suggestively, one feeding bits to her toddler in between her own mouthfuls. Others (mostly nongirlies) grasped the fillet with both hands and pulled the meat off the skin with their teeth like a bear.

It's not that the salmon itself looked grotesque; the fish alone is mouthwatering, the tradition of smoking it beautiful. What was horrifying to watch was the way the salmon was handled, angled so the light would glint off its heart-red sheen, its meat pulled the way zombies yank off limbs in movies. But as a viral marketing move, it worked.

The influencers either announced that they were tasting salmon sent to them by the Idaho, USA-based Solovey Kitchen or tagged the company, which now has longer processing times because of “the unusually high volume of orders”. What the videos don't delve into is the rich tradition of smoking salmon. Although Solovey Kitchen did not reply to interview requests, its social media accounts indicate that the company’s owners have roots in Slavic cuisine.