Get that stuck in your head for a while.

Tam is talking about salmon and the difference between the cheap crap and the good stuff, and it brought me back to a time, long ago, when fish was something bland that resided in the middle of a thick coating of fried batter.

We were a midwestern family, of course, and we ate beef. Sometimes we ate pork. There were the chickens, and the occasional duck. Turkeys, of course, were for thanksgiving with the occasional family get together meal, and lots and lots of burgers. Well, and squirlz, peseants, and quayle.

Special treats, however, were Dad’s two favorite meals, kraut and mashed potatoes with milk gravy, and salmon patties with milk gravy and peas.

Salmon patties consisted of tinned salmon, which was apparently the sweepings from regular salmon, mashed into patties apparently held together by vomit, fried until the pieces of scale and bone were burnt to a crunchy consistency, and doused in a gravy whose predominant ingredient was also, possibly, vomit, but which also contained some peas.

From that moment on, for many years at least, I was opposed to Salmon. I was too young at the time, but I eventually decided that on reaching adulthood, I would actively seek to eradicate salmon everywhere.

Several years back, I had some nigirizushi, and liked it a great deal, because I didn’t know what it was. I attempted to vomit it up as soon as I discovered what it was, but it was several weeks later and my attempts to regurgitate said salmon were not fruitful, though I did find some keys and a 9/16″ socket I was missing.

Eventually I learned that salmon didn’t have to be a fibrous, nasty, bone and scale encrusted wad of filth from a can, and that it could in fact have a wonderful flavor, varying (Depending on the species) from delicate to robust, and smoked or marinated it could be downright loverly.

I remember the first time I cooked it for the Ogwife.

And then, when I came to, and saw her standing over me with a cast iron skillet threatening me with my life if I ever tried to poison her again, I decided that I would keep my love of salmon to myself.

Years later, visiting some friends in the ogwife’s hometown, she took me to the park in the middle of town.

See, where the Ogwife grew up, they have salmon runs. And the park in the center of town, walking distance from her childhood home, there are two salmon runs a year. We finally showed up during the salmon run.

And I immediately understood.

If you’ve never stood on the shore of a river while thousands of salmon swam upstream and their dead carcases float downstream, stinking to high heaven, you won’t understand. But now I do, knowing that twice a year she walked past two weeks of that stink two times a year for more years than anyone should.

So I eat my salmon when she’s on vacation, and we do fine.