HSU Grilled Salmon Culinary Rating Experiment
Ocean-Caught Chinook Salmon Beats Out Competitors
At a special Cinco de Mayo 2002 event, Fisheries Biology faculty, graduate students, and "select" undergraduate students (those enrolled in this semester's seminar class devoted to the Hogan decision and other hatchery fish issues) joined for fun and games at the Freshwater Creek home of Professor Terry Roelofs. One of the special events that precipitated this gathering was a "blind" salmon taste testing. Chef David Hankin (Professor of Fisheries Biology) located, purchased, cut, marinated (a special secret teriyaki/mirin marinade) and grilled (assisted by Justin Ainsworth, MS student in Fisheries) four different "types" of salmon. Salmon were labeled as "A", "B", "C", and "D" and only Hankin knew the identity of what was being consumed. All fish were marinated for the same length of time and were grilled at medium heat on matching Weber propane grills for approximately the same length of time.
Participants were asked to give quality ratings for each type of salmon on a scale of 1-5 on the following criteria: (1) appearance, (2) taste, and (3) texture. They were also asked to give each type of salmon an "overall" rating. Types were: "A" = BC farm-raised chinook; "B" = BC farm-raised steelhead; "C" = BC farm-raised Atlantic salmon; "D" = Oregon ocean-caught chinook salmon. All fish were fresh (none had been frozen). A total of 27 people filled out ratings sheets; other people just ate salmon (and Mexican food)! Type "B", "C" and "D" were all purchased from the same store and were delivered on the same date; type "A" was a "last-minute" purchase and it was unknown when it had been delivered to the store at which it was purchased.
Taste Tests Results
2002 HSU Fisheries Biology Cinco de Mayo Celebration. Means and Standard Errors (S.E.) of Ratings on a scale of 1-5 (1 = lowest, 5 = highest).
|
|
Appearance |
Taste |
Texture |
Overall Rating |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Mean |
S.E. |
Mean |
S.E. |
Mean |
S.E. |
Mean |
S.E. |
|
"A" |
3.22 |
0.24 |
2.83 |
0.21 |
2.69 |
0.21 |
2.59 |
0.20 |
|
"B" |
3.70 |
0.19 |
3.48 |
0.24 |
3.35 |
0.25 |
3.52 |
0.22 |
|
"C" |
3.52 |
0.19 |
3.30 |
0.26 |
3.22 |
0.26 |
3.28 |
0.22 |
|
"D" |
3.78 |
0.18 |
3.91 |
0.18 |
3.78 |
0.21 |
3.86 |
0.20 |
Ocean-caught chinook were the clear winner in every category and farm-raised chinook were the clear loser in every category! Also notable was that the variation (standard deviation) of ratings was smaller for Oregon ocean-caught chinook than for any other type of salmon. Variation was largest for BC farmed Atlantic salmon. Some folks found farmed Atlantic salmon to be an excellent fish and others gave it extremely low ratings. The big surprise was the strong showing of BC farmed steelhead.
You Get What You Pay For!
Local fish markets must know something about product quality! The retail prices per pound of the above types of salmon were right in line with our taste test results. The cheapest and lowest rated fish was farmed BC chinook salmon at $3.18/lb for a whole dressed fish. Farmed BC Atlantic salmon and steelhead were each $4.49/lb for fillets. And the top-rated Oregon ocean-caught chinook salmon was the most expensive at $6.19/lb for a whole dressed fish.
Future Taste Tests?
It would be fun to have head-to-head blind taste tests for more species of Pacific salmon. We tried hard to locate fresh sockeye salmon, but were about two weeks too early for the commercial openers in Alaska. We also could not locate pink or chum salmon. Coho salmon is, of course, currently off limits in California and Oregon due to ESA listings.
If any of you (Alaskan) HSU Fisheries alumni out there would like to help us with finding fresh sockeye, chum and/or pink salmon for next year, that would be terrific!
Bon Appetit!
