Cured for what ails you

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Given the strong showing by the Blue Bombers this season and the return of the NHL's Jets, some people believe Winnipeg is the sports capital of Canada right now.

If it weren't for Edmonton's homicide woes, we'd also be Canada's murder capital in 2011. And we consistently claim the dubious distinction of being the Slurpee Capital of the World, an honour that seems to elevate both diabetes and tooth decay from public-health embarrassments to badges of honour.

All of this is well-known, well-documented and better left alone for all eternity. But if you'll permit a little wistfulness this morning -- and perhaps even the sin of nostalgia -- allow me to argue Winnipeg should strive to reclaim a much more honourable title to go along with our penchant for professional sport, our tendency toward bloodlust and our undying desire to pollute our bodies with a noxious mixture of crushed ice and glucose syrup.

This city also has the potential to be the cured-fish capital of the continent, should we ever decide to fully explore the culinary, health and environmental benefits of brining, salting, smoking, drying and pickling all the piscine wonders of Manitoba's ample fresh waters.

Yes, you can still find smoked goldeye, whitefish, tulibee and occasionally catfish in specialty shops like Gimli Fish and the seafood counters of large-scale supermarkets. And yes, you can buy dried pickerel jerky at Interlake gas stations and consume salted whitefish caviar amid dollops of crème fraîche at a handful of Winnipeg restaurants.

But given the sheer volume of fish caught in Lake Winnipeg -- the largest freshwater fishery west of the Great Lakes -- not to mention Lake Manitoba and many smaller bodies of water, it's disappointing to find Winnipeggers have by and large fallen out of love with consuming this stuff in its smokiest, saltiest and fishiest incarnation.

As recently as the 1990s, you could find smoked goldeye on the menu at Rae & Jerry's Steakhouse, where pickled herring and chopped liver remain among the appetizer selections in a nod the to Eastern European heritage of much of the early clientele at the Portage Avenue icon. Goldeye was deleted due to supply issues, although they may very well be a declining appetite for the most delicate of Manitoba's smoked fish.

As recently as the 1970s, you could purchase pickled fish at corner groceries in West Kildonan, where schmaltz herring caught in the Maritimes or off the coast of Europe were stored in plastic barrels, especially around Jewish high holidays. But the decline of the neighbourhood grocer as well as the North End Jewish community ended this practice as well.

Go back a full century and cured fish was a Manitoba staple. Dried, smoked and occasionally pickled, it was beloved not just in the Icelandic settlements throughout the Interlake, First Nations communities across the province and Eastern European enclaves within Winnipeg, but also among the English, French and German majority.

At the time, cured fish was an inexpensive, nutritious and plentiful foodstuff favoured by ordinary, working-class people. After the Second World War, with the increasing popularity of processed food and refrigeration, this sort of peasant fare started to fall out of favour in Manitoba as it did in many other regions of North America.

Today, some U.S. and Ontario communities around the Great Lakes still have strong appetites for smoked whitefish. It's also common for restaurants and fishmongers in Florida to smoke the yellowfin or marlin they don't sell the first day to later serve as a dip or appetizer. Smoked salmon -- both the insipid farmed stuff and the more desirable wild flesh -- has never been more popular.

But only in New York City does cured fish continue to hold the most esteemed culinary position. Yes, New Yorkers like their lox and bagels. But they also like their smoked sablefish, haddock and even sturgeon.

During an October visit to Manhattan, I ventured into the fabled Russ & Daughters delicatessen, an East Houston Street institution run by the same family since 1914. I wanted to park myself in the narrow aisle for a week just to sample the variety of glistening fish behind the counter. This joint is so busy as to bely the fact its odoriferous offerings have fallen out of favour almost everywhere else.

Could a shop like this survive anywhere else? Even if tastes change, cured fish is no longer peasant food. Farm-raised smoked sturgeon and belly lox, once the preferred lunch of dirt-poor European immigrants, are now expensive delicacies. But Manitoba's freshwater catch remains a bargain by comparison.

In Winnipeg, even the most prized smoked goldeye still retails for about $6 a fish, an affordable luxury for people who still desire its delicate taste. Smoked whitefish and tulibee are even cheaper. And other fish could come to the market at reasonable prices, in either fresh or smoked form.

Manitoba fishers, hampered as they are by the pickerel-focused Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, have barely even begun to explore the potential of smoking underutilized but tasty species such as burbot, sucker and pike.

Not only would more local production and consumption of smoked fish enhance Manitoba's economy, it would also enhance our collective health. Whitefish in particular is among the world's most nutritious creatures, packed as it is with more brain-and-cardiac-health-promoting fatty acids than even salmon can boast.

Eating more freshwater fish may also reduce the wasteful practice of discarding bycatch -- not to mention ease some of burden on beleaguered ocean fisheries, where the vast majority of fisheries is in decline.

But nobody really needs an environmental, nutritional or economic argument reason to eat more cured fish. To adult tastebuds, nothing else can really compete with the stuff.

So if it's been a long time, go out and find yourself a goldeye. Peel back the skin, take the time to separate the buttery flesh from the tiny bones and dig in.

If you really want to go old-school, make sure you have capers, lemon wedges, thin slice of red onion and either bagels or rye bread at hand. I would argue this is part of our culinary heritage, if it wasn't for the fact I really wish it was part of our culinary future. If only they could sell goldeye at Sev.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 11, 2011 A8