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H Forman & Son are the UK’s oldest salmon
smokery and the last
East London family-run business to survive in an
industry whose market was demolished by fish farming. How have they
stood the test of time?
Most people think that
Smoked
Salmon is a traditional Scottish delicacy, but the custom
of smoking as a way of preserving food was introduced from abroad less
than 120 years ago.
When they arrived in London’s east end
from the pogroms of Russia, Ukraine and Poland, immigrant east Europeans
brought with them fish in barrels of brine, which they smoked for their
own consumption. It didn’t take them long to discover the superb
indigenous fish. Before long, smoked salmon made a grand entrance into
the dining rooms of London and soon became Britain’s number one luxury
food.
Until 20 years ago, over a dozen salmon
curers traded from their traditional Hackney base, but now only one
survives. H Forman & Son, founded in 1905 by the great-grandfather of
the present managing director, Lance Forman, is now the world’s leading
supplier of Scottish smoked wild salmon.
‘In the last seven years, there has been
a noticeable improvement in peoples’ awareness of the differences
between wild and farmed salmon,’ enthuses Lance. ‘There is definitely a
demand for wild salmon wherever you go.’
Combining only the finest specimens with
nearly a century of expertise, the company cures and smokes both wild
and farmed salmon to the same exacting specifications. Lance points out
that, although wild salmon tastes irrefutably better than the farmed
variety, it is neither more nutritious nor healthier.
‘Although there has been some bad
publicity about salmon farming I wouldn’t agree with everything I read.
Much of it is rumour-mongering.’
The pigment Canthaxanthin, which is found
in farmed salmon, recently formed the basis of a scare story in the
Daily Mail, but the spin was quickly halted by the Scottish Quality
Salmon organisation, which pointed out that Canthaxanthin, a naturally
occurring carotenoid pigment, is also eaten by wild salmon. Another myth
that Lance is glad to dispel is that wild salmon is smoked ‘fresh.’
‘Wild salmon is frozen – it has to be by
European law, and it always was. We don’t have a problem with it,
because the process of defrosting actually enhances the fish. A lot of
younger chefs who aren’t familiar with the history of salmon smoking
raise their eyebrows but they forget that in former times, salmon was
either eaten fresh or – out of season – smoked. We always freeze the
fish when it is caught, but when it defrosts and the water melts away,
the flesh becomes more porous and draws in the smoke to give a beautiful
even flavour,’ he explains.
Farmed salmon now costs about £15 a kilo
compared to £80 for its wild cousins. A dearth of wild salmon – mainly
due to an increase in the seal population – as well as their
labour-intensive, meticulous preparation, accounts for the big
difference in price. A 5kg wild salmon smoked by Forman’s London Cure
will reduce its weight by more than two thirds – a further reason for
its
fine food cache.
This year, H Forman & Son held its last
Wild Salmon Race in which the first Scottish salmon to be caught after 1
February, won its fisherman a Fortnum & Mason hamper and £100 cash
prize.
‘One of the reasons we’re stopping the
race is less to do with the general decline in wild salmon than the
slight genetic difference between fish caught in the spring and those
caught in summer. It’s principally the summer variety that we are
smoking.’
The introduction of mass-produced salmon
farming some 20 years ago provided much-needed employment in the
Highlands and Islands. But the supermarkets introduced changes in the
concept of salmon buying, putting pressure on new companies to find
cheaper ways of production. Instead of purchasing the best, the
supermarkets bought the cheapest raw material, and this often meant that
traditional suppliers were competing with weak, heavily subsidised
Norwegian fish.
Increasing commercial demands from the
supermarkets also changed the curing method for farmed salmon. Instead
of putting dry salt on to suck the moisture out of the fish, the new
suppliers added salt to the drying salmon, actually pumping up the
weight and giving the fish an extra shelf life, but also embalming it in
a slimy, unpleasant texture. The most recent technique employed to avoid
weight loss is not to smoke the fish at all but just to spray it with
smoke flavouring.
Although rod-caught fish appear in
February, Forman’s buy only net-caught fish, which start to arrive in
early May.
‘It’s very competitive and political, and
a lot of games are played,’ admits Lloyd Hardwick, professional chef and
current general manager at H Forman & Son. ‘Three or four main
contenders try to buy as much salmon as they can and sell it to us,
knowing we’re the only ones who smoke it. If we get to the fishermen
first, we command the lower price. It’s led by demand.’
Little has changed over the years. Fish
arrive daily from Scotland and the 30-strong work force clock in at 4am.
The fish are first graded, then bled and given a good wash down.
‘People always think there’s a secret
process involved with wild salmon,’ says Hardwick, ‘but the magic is
simply the traditional method combined with the highest quality fish. As
a chef, if I make sure I have the best fish coming in, there’s less
preparation to do. The product should speak for itself.’
After the salmon are ‘penny-holed’, to
allow deep absorption, they are covered in pure rock salt and no other
flavouring. Other curers might enhance the flesh with juniper berries
but Forman’s use nothing else. This is the true London Cure. When the
moisture and bacteria have been drawn out, the fish is dried in the kiln
for eight to ten hours with smoke derived from damp oak sawdust. This
completely natural process results in flesh that is very low in salt and
smoke. The flavour of the fish comes freely and the smoke can only be
tasted at the back of one’s palette.
The fish is then sliced by hand on the
bone from the head downwards and the belly bones are removed. The MD’s
brother can skin, gut, whisk out the 32 pin bones, fillet and lateral
slice a 22-pounder in the space of a few minutes. On completion, every
part of the fish finds a market. Locals call round to buy the head for
soup and the pellicle for chopping up in salads. Being lightly cured,
the pellicle is lean and buttery and melts in your mouth.
Forman’s customers represent a Who’s Who
of catering, including top food halls, restaurants and hotels around the
world. A galaxy of star chefs like Willi Elsener of The Dorchester,
Anton Edelmann of the Savoy order Forman’s salmon regularly, as does
Harrods and the House of Commons.
Until four years ago, Fortnum & Mason,
their biggest client, was selling 50 per cent farmed and 50 per cent
wild salmon. A year ago, despite being two to three times the price of
farmed salmon, sales of wild salmon had rocketed to 90 per cent, so
Fortnum’s decided not to stock farmed salmon at all. To the company’s
advantage, Hardwick used to work as a corporate chef for the Roux
brothers, High Table and Tate Modern. He knows most of the west end and
city chefs personally and understands exactly what they want.
H Forman & Son also run a successful
sideline in imported sea fish and prepared foods, sold through their
website – www.formanandfield.com. The site has a selection of top
quality foods from small suppliers around Britain which can be delivered
within 24 hours. Some of the products are also available as
hamper gift
baskets.
‘The biggest problem now is the shortage
of skilled chefs in the industry,’ says Hardwick. ‘So what happens is
they buy more semi-cooked food. We offer something they can rely on,
such as a well-made fish cake, prepared by a chef and sent out to a
chef.’
This summer, the company will move to
bigger and brighter premises, still in Hackney. In a specially
constructed demonstration centre Hardwick intends to introduce the
Forman method exclusively to chefs, thus preserving the company’s almost
100 year-old integrity in
Salmon Smoking
Timothy
Foster
First
published in PURE Modern Lifestyle
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