Wild Versus Farmed

Because wild Atlantic salmon never appears for sale and is only caught by sports fisherman, few of us have the opportunity to compare wild and farmed Atlantic salmon. Any wild salmon we encounter at the fish market is Pacific salmon, which is leaner than Atlantic salmon and whose taste varies widely depending on where and when it was caught. Most everyone says that wild salmon is better than farmed salmon, but I remain unconvinced. Farmed salmon is consistently flavorful and since it is shipped out as soon as it is killed and gutted, it is almost always impeccably fresh. Farmed salmon is also less red than most wild salmon, although it can be made redder with special feed—redness has little to do with quality. Despite being content with the quality” of farmed salmon, I still eat wild salmon when it’s in season and I can find it (it also, at least on the East Coast, is a lot more expensive) simply because it’s different, not because it’s necessarily better. True, I occasionally happen upon a fish that has a celestial flavor but every fish is slightly different, an element of unpredictability that makes eating wild salmon more interesting.