Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Alaska's Best Salmon Jerky - Regular

Alaska's Best Salmon Jerky - RegularWhile I've had lots of smoked salmon, this is the first time I've had something labed as "salmon jerky". Since I know very little about salmon jerky, I'm assuming it's the same thing as smoked salmon, except drier, and chewier.

The best I can tell, the Alaska's Best brand is owned by Trapper's Creek, Inc., based out of Anchorage, AK. Trapper's Creek was founded in 1988 as a shipper of smoked salmon.

Salmon jerky has actually been around for a very long time, maybe as long as beef jerky. It used to be called "squaw candy", or "salmon candy", where indians would take strips of salmon, soak it overnight in a sugar-salt brine, and then smoke it until it became hard. Today, there's actually a line of snack foods called "salmon candy" produced by several manufacturers, but is more sweet than "salmon jerky".

Ingredients

Wild Salmon, salt, brown sugar, corn syrup solids, natural flavoring, spices, garlic powder (contains: fish).

Taste

The tastes I get from the surface of these pieces is a fishy taste, with some saltiness. Maybe a very slight sweetness. In the chewing, I pick up a stronger smoked salmon taste, and a stronger saltiness.

This basically tastes like smoked salmon, just like you'd find anywhere else. Because it's drier than smoked salmon, there's less of a fishy taste than you'd find in smoked salmon. But it still seems to provide a lot of smoked salmon flavor.

I do however, get a fishy aftertaste in the back of my mouth.

It also seems to have a fresh taste, at least I don't sense anything stale in this.

I'd say that this is more salty than typical smoked salmon. The nutrition facts label shows 910mg of sodium which is very high for other meat jerkies. But since I do love smoked salmon, and because this jerky does provide a lot of that taste, the saltiness is something I can overlook.

I don't really notice much in the spices and garlic powder.

For the most part, this is just the great taste of smoked salmon, albeit with more salt.

Meat Consistency

These appear to be strips of whole meat, cut into lengths of about 6-8 inches, and widths of about 1/2 inch.

It's largely dry, but they do have a degree of oiliness on the surface and inside the meat. It's very easy to bite off a piece, the meat mostly separates by the grain. It's also very easy to chew. It's not anywhere near as moist as actual smoked salmon, but then again that's why they call this "salmon jerky".

And it chews just like real smoked salmon, just a little more dry.

In terms of cleanliness, it does leave a thin layer of oil on my fingertips. There's also tiny granules of sugar (I think it's sugar), on one side of these strips, which sticks to that layer of oil on my fingertips.




Snack Value

You can purchase this online from Climax Jerky in a sampler containing this regular, along with peppered, and teriyaki, at a price of $6.00 for a 2 ounce package. That works out to a price of $3.00 per ounce. Which for salmon jerky, is on the lower end of average priced.

For salmon jerky snacking purposes, it's a great value only because at that price, it's got a great smoked salmon flavor, in a form factor that makes it relatively clean to eat with your fingers. I found it very tempting to keep eating more.

Rating

I'm giving this a best rating.

I'll have to condition that, however, by saying that I can't really compare this to other salmon jerkies, since I haven't had any other salmon jerkies. But I did get plenty of smoked salmon flavor, and found this very easy to bite off and chew. It was also rather salty, but I found the smoked salmon flavor to be so rich, that I easily overlooked the saltiness.

It also leaves behind a fishy taste in my mouth and a fishy smell on my fingers, but then again, I think that's to be expected with salmon jerky.

But still, I really enjoyed eating this, and couldn't resist eating more.

For a good beer recommendation, try a wheat beer.

Rating: Best (5/5)

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