London Cure Smoked Salmon

Appearance & taste

Smoked farmed salmon has an even orange to pink colour and a glossy, delicate texture. Wild salmon is pink to dusky pink, its consistency creamy, firmer and heavier than that of farmed salmon. In both cases the salmon and smoke aromas are balanced, and neither masks the other. The taste is mild and delicate, and the salt content is only 3 to 4 %.

The salmon is sold as untrimmed or trimmed whole sides or in slices, cut lengthwise (long cut) or across the fish (D-cut). There is no minimum or maximum size.

Production

Farmed or wild salmon of superior quality grade is used, traditionally from Scotland. The fish must have undamaged, shiny skin with no visible loss of scales and a natural streamlined shape, with no open wounds or bruises. Wild salmon must still be in rigor mortis and have red gills, clear eyes and shiny scales. Ideally the salmon arrives at the smokehouse within 48 hours of harvest, and within five days at the latest.

The salmon is cut by hand into two fillets; traditionally, coin-shaped holes of 2.5 to 7.5 cm are cut into the skin so that salt and smoke penetrate evenly. The belly and pin bones stay in the fillet during salting and smoking. The fillets are sprinkled with rock salt on racks and left for up to 24 hours depending on their size. They are then rinsed, hung in the smoking kiln or laid on racks, and smoked in oak smoke and air-dried for at most 13 hours. The warm air flow forms a hard crust, the pellicle.

Before slicing, the pellicle and the 32 pin bones are removed by hand, the bones with tweezers in the direction of growth. Each salmon is sliced by hand; the slightly uneven surface is meant to bring out the aroma better. Perforated cellophane is placed between the slices, and each slice is checked once more for skin, pellicle and bones before dispatch.

Origin & history

The area covers the London boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Newham.

Salmon smoking in London began in the late 19th century, when Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe settled in the East End. In Eastern Europe it was common to salt and smoke fish for the long winters, and the immigrants continued this tradition. From 1880 to 1919 the Jewish population of the United Kingdom grew from 46,000 to around 250,000; in London it lived mainly in Spitalfields and Whitechapel near the docks, where the first smokehouses were set up.

At first the smokers imported salmon from the Baltic, until they discovered Scottish wild salmon at Billingsgate fish market. Unlike the kippers made with heavy smoke in Scotland at the time, the “London Cure” method was mild and gentle. Before the war nine businesses in the East End smoked salmon, and by the mid-1970s there were about a dozen. According to the specification, the method has remained largely unchanged since 1905.