a color story: cured salmon

Oh no. A new recipe and we were the guinea pigs. Thinly slice cured raw salmon with white rice, micro greens and Korean chili paste. We usually had this meal with regular raw salmon but what the heck, I had great experiences eating cured meats recently. Soy-based boiled eggs, Soy-based raw crab legs, and a family friend prepared us a large raw shrimp cured with a sweet soya sauce that opened up a culinary perspective.  Why not extend the streak?

I looked at the fully cured aged-brown salmon and it didn't look quite appetizing. There was a clear trade off for losing its trademark pink color for the potential of improving the salmon taste. I bit into this new piece of food and noticed the citrus notes immediately from the lemon, the cured process add a subtle chewier texture in the flesh and it finished off with a sweet note which lingered. That bite was a three course meal in itself. I was impressed by this culinary achievement.

But, my brother disagreed and preferred the classico raw pink salmon. How could this be? I recalled a similar situation almost a decade ago. 

At the local all-you-can-eat (AYCE) in North York, there was cured beef on the dinner menu via tablet. I ordered the meat for the curiosity's sake as this dish was novel in the AYCE space (I may be wrong but I don't see it at all these days). The cuts were thinly sliced and I wasn't impressed by the color. I thought it wasn't beef at all. I took a bite with a friend and we both agreed that it changed the flavor but its something we wouldn't order again. This delectable cured meat wasn't our ideal thing that we swallowed down for the protein gains. Looking back, I didn't appreciate the culinary perspective as I didn't have the knowledge to describe what was going on. Now, I understood why it was only available in the dinner menu. One could meet their ideal meal just eating this delectable cured beef strips. 

Initially, I argued that the change in the powerful pink color in salmon changed the identity of itself- no pink, no salmon. But, this one dimensional perspective ignored my tasting senses. It was too bad that color played a heavy role in my brother's favor in the traditional approach. I wondered if he considered the trade off with the color or was his bias too heavy on the color? 

Later this afternoon, I approached the fridge trying to find something to eat for lunch. I saw the cured salmon in a tight container. Unfortunately, I heavily blistered my cutting hand from trying to start the gas-powered chainsaw; this sounded like an excuse and my actions spoke otherwise on the "culinary achievement". I cooked left-over spicy soft tofu with vermicelli noodles. My food ego (pictured) can awake another time.