People in Portland, Oregon have salmon on the brain. It is a centuries old, intense love-affair – one that I can easily identify with having grown up in the Bronx where lox was one of the five basic food groups along with pickled herring, pastrami, rye bread and shmalts {or schmaltz}- chicken fat. Everyone from the state’s original people – the Umatilla, Warm Springs, Siletz and Grand Ronde tribes, to the chic tattooed urban dwellers, is salmon obsessed. At the downtown Portland farmers market there are at least 3 purveyors of fresh and smoked salmon, not including a Native American guy who also sells fresh salmon eggs that you can take home as I have and make ikura. I’ve not done any scientific surveys but it appears to me that in the last 10 years the Oregonian has had more front page articles on protecting salmon habitats than on any other major political issue – except logging maybe. (Actually logging and salmon are joined at the hip because logging allegedly destroys salmon habitats.)
Folks here have an encyclopedic knowledge of salmon; I have several friends who can speak authoritatively on the taste variations among the various species: red, chinook, coho, chum, pink and sockeye and the heavenly king (and the super-heavenly white king) as well as the much maligned but often eaten – farm-raised salmon. Every supermarket carries several varieties of salmon and my favorite salmon hang out, Newman’s Fishmarket (in the City Market) even carries smoked king bellies and smoked collars. The collar for those not in the know is that part of the salmon between the gill opening and the pectoral fin. A delicacy amongst Japanese and Jews, it contains some tiny, luxurious fatty pieces which are good for your heart and will make you do the salmon dance.
With this salmon-fixation, the fish is on the menu at a good many of the city’s restaurants. You can get the salmon exotically prepared on a cedar plank at Jakes in downtown Portland or go to a hipster place like Bluehour in the Pearl District (Portland’s vain attempt at Soho) and have salmon tartare with avocado, chive and endive salad and potato gaufrettes. But if you want a simple but delicious salmon sandwich in a fairly unhip down home setting, head for the 106 year old Besaw’s in Northwest Portland on 23rd St. A throwback to the time when Portland was called Stumptown, walking into Besaws with its well worn wooden bar, evokes the feeling of the Coen brothers’ film Miller’s Crossing. Though they have an extensive menu, I order only one thing: the grilled wild salmon sandwich with lettuce and caramelized onions on grilled sourdough with a horseradish-caper remoulade.
The salmon they use is the lowly red (about 6 or 8 ounces) often relegated to the can, but they make it taste like a prime piece of king – sort of like how a good meat cooker can take a chuck steak and make it taste as good as a strip. The horseradish caper remoulade sounds like it would over power the delicate fish but it adds just enough creamy kick to enhance the salmon’s flavor. But the real flavor zinger is the small mountain of the caramelized buttery onions which imparts kind of a smoky flavor to the sandwich. I could do without the lettuce slice but believe the salmon’s feelings would be hurt were it not for the crunch of the grilled sourdough. All in all this is a relatively simple sandwich – one you could make at home – but why try when they do such a bang up job here at Besaws?
Besaw’s
2301 NW Savier St
Portland, OR 97210-2513
(503) 228-2619
Paul Mones is nationally recognized children's rights attorney specializing in representing sexual abuse victims and teens who kill their parents. He is also a published author and most importantly an avid chef who won the 1978 North Carolina Pork Barbecue Championship.