Our fish fly first class

Here’s the conventional wisdom: Seafood is never as fresh in Spokane as it is in Seattle, where salt water laps on the shore. Or is it?

According to those in the seafood distribution and preparation business, the above statement smells just slightly fishy.

“The fact is, you are often getting the same fresh fish here they are getting at the Space Needle,” said Brian Jerald of the Spokane office of Pacific Seafood, one of three major seafood distributors, along with Ocean Beauty Seafoods and Northstar Sea Foods, which operate in Spokane.

No blanket answer is possible, since the fish business involves so many variables: the species of fish, the season, the supplier and how finicky your particular grocery store or chef might be.

Still, Jerald illustrated his point by tracing a hypothetical salmon caught on, let’s say, a fishing boat off the mouth of the Columbia River.

Day 1: The fish reaches dock in the afternoon at Astoria, where it is immediately loaded onto a refrigerated truck to Seattle. It arrives that evening at Pacific Seafood’s Seattle warehouse, where orders have been collected all day from Seattle and Spokane and other parts of the state. The orders are packed that night.

Day 2: The Spokane truck departs Seattle at midnight and arrives in Spokane at 5 or 6 a.m., where it delivers directly to supermarkets and restaurants. The Seattle orders don’t have to leave so early: They leave the warehouse at dawn and venture out into the early morning Seattle traffic.

“So that fish might be at Clinkerdagger’s long before it would get there (a Seattle restaurant),” said Jerald. “The fact is: They pack Spokane first.”

Mike Maiola, the general manager of Ocean Beauty Seafood’s Spokane distribution center, sketched out a surprisingly speedy scenario for a more distant fish, a typical Copper River salmon:

Day 1: Caught on a boat and brought to dock at Cordova, Alaska, where it is flown that evening to Anchorage. It is then loaded onto the first available plane to Seattle, where it arrives that night or …

Day 2: Arrives in the morning, where it goes onto a truck bound for Spokane, where it will be either delivered that day or …

Day 3: Delivered to the customer in the morning.

“From boat to here, it takes two days at the soonest, three sometimes,” said Maiola.

Not bad for a fish that will keep quite well for at least nine days if handled properly.

For tropical fish, like ahi tuna or mahi mahi, the fish are flown directly from Hawaii or other Pacific bases to SeaTac International.

“We have trucks that go to SeaTac six to eight times a day,” said Jerald.

After that, the drill remains the same.

“It’s just a matter of how long it takes to get over the pass,” said Maiola.

Of course, what happens after it arrives at a Spokane meat-and-seafood counter can make a pungent difference as well.

“Ten or 20 years ago in Spokane, nobody was trained,” said Maiola. “They were using meat guys, and the fish would sit there in their own juices and take away from the shelf life. It’s all about experience. We’ve grown leaps and bounds from when I started in this business. People are demanding it.”

Consequently, when you find a supermarket seafood counter that is picky about freshness, stick with it. Many seafood aficionados also swear by the specialty retailers, such as Williams Seafood Market and Wines and Egger Meats and Seafoods.

Micah Ogle, head chef at Luna, has figured out a way to cut out a few steps in this process. He has cultivated a relationship with a fisherman in Yakutat, Alaska.

“This fisherman goes out in his boat, catches salmon on troll lines, fishes until 3 p.m., goes to the airport, puts them on the plane directly to Spokane, where we go to pick them up,” said Ogle. “He does this three days a week. It’s the best salmon I’ve ever worked with.”

The same fisherman sends him fresh halibut in season. Freshness is especially important with halibut, said Ogle, because bottom fish such as halibut, sole and flounder do not keep as long as free-swimming fish like salmon.

What happens when nothing’s in season? You can go with frozen fish. The distribution imperatives for frozen fish and seafood are completely different. Time is no longer key; weight and volume are the numbers that matter.

However, few chefs are willing to use frozen salmon if they can avoid it.

“Maybe one percent of the salmon I sell will be frozen during the wild season,” said Maiola.

Farm-raised salmon are available any time of the year, and can often by fresher than wild salmon because the distribution pipeline is even smoother. Yet many chefs find the farm-raised flavor lacking, and Ogle, for one, won’t buy any.

The wild salmon season, by the way, has just now started with the beginnings of the Columbia River salmon run. It will continue with various runs through Labor Day and into October.

Still, if you really want the freshest seafood, you’d be better off shopping on the wharves of Astoria or Victoria. Or even better, buying a boat, catching your own chinook and cooking it over a beach fire on the first island you can find.

But even with that extra jaunt over Snoqualmie Pass, a lot of seafood in Spokane is fresher than you might imagine. And when it’s not – well, your nose is your first line of defense.