If you love the taste of salmon — grilled, poached, plank roasted, smoked, whipped into a mousse or dried into jerky — then you should consider a trip to Alaska.
You can fish for salmon, visit salmon hatcheries, see salmon leaping upstream to spawn, watch seals and bears devour salmon, and buy souvenirs shaped like salmon. This state is salmon central.
On a recent cruise through southeast Alaska’s Inside Passage with stops in Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan, I gained an appreciation for the abundance of wild seafood in this state with thousands of miles of coastline. You can hop on a floatplane and follow a fishing guide to isolated locations or you can simply rent a fishing pole to drop a line off a bridge in the middle of Ketchikan and catch a salmon in seconds.
The Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1800s may have gotten things going in these parts, but today’s tourism treasure is built on sharing the wealth of wilderness beauty. Local restaurants greet guests with menu boards boasting Alaska salmon, cod, halibut, King and Dungeness crab. Grilled, fried, blackened or made into tacos or chowder seafood is the star attraction. You’ll get plenty of heart-healthy omega-3 fats on this vacation.
On Location on board
Passengers cruising with Holland America Line don’t have to wait until the ship docks to start sampling Alaska’s foods and locally brewed beers. The cruise line’s new On Location program offers cooking classes in the Culinary Arts Center, and the ship’s menu and bar selections are inspired by the region.
“We want to depict the area we are sailing in,” says Colin Harding-Jones, executive chef of the MS Oosterdam. Harding-Jones’ cooking demo shared how to prepare Coho salmon and spice it up with a ginger cilantro pesto sauce.
Mild temperatures in southeast Alaska and plenty of sunshine helped set the scene for a festive outdoor Salmon Bake on the deck around the swimming pool of the Oosterdam one afternoon. Cooks flipped salmon fillets on grills, steamed mussels and clams and served apple and berry pies to 2,000 passengers hungry to taste more of Alaska’s bounty.
What about baked Alaska?
Desserts included Yukon whiskey-laced sourdough bread pudding, Alaskan berry compote and, of course, baked Alaska was served one night (without the open flames, for shipboard safety). “We have one guy in the galley with a blow torch dedicated to browning the classic meringue top,” says Harding-Jones.
Guess what, trivia lovers? Baked Alaska was invented in New York City in 1876. Named at Delmonico’s restaurant, this iconic dessert made with ice cream, cake and meringue celebrates the U.S. purchase of Alaska’s nearly 600,000 square miles from Russia for $7.2 million. But it sure tastes great with a glacier view.
About the Author
