The Skinny on the Skin

I have no qualms admitting it- one of my favorite parts of a meal featured pan-seared or grilled or oven roasted wild salmon or black cod is the skin.

So much so, that it makes me cringe when I stop by the fish monger’s counter at my local market and see all the fillets have been pre-skinned.

Far too many people are still frightened of (g00d) fat and certainly would never deign to actually, purposely eat the skin.

But they’re missing out!

Not only is the taste fantastic, it’s actually part of the whole concept of eating the whole animal.   

Furthermore, the skin does not actually have the most fat; the gray layer is the fattiest part of salmon, and the skin contains relatively little by comparison.

And, for the record, wild salmon, and it’s skin, has about 50% of the fat of farmed salmon, the latter of which may be feeding on a plethora of unnatural food items and a higher percentage of which is saturated, and contains more pro-inflammatory omega-6 than anti-inflammatory omega-3s.  Not too different from stock yard beef compared to 100% grass fed.

So, go wild and eat that whole piece of salmon, or black cod, or whatever is local to you.   No more scraping the skin off to the side of your plate to discard as if it were nothing more than a garnish for presentation.   It’s the tastiest part!