Look at the coat of arms of Glasgow: it features a bell, bird, tree and fish. The fish is a Scottish salmon, which was once found in the Clyde River in such numbers that the servants, when hiring, made the condition that they would be fed salmon no more than twice a week. Today, great efforts are being made to make the river habitable again for this priceless fish to the Scots.
In the meantime, salmon is caught mainly in four rivers: Dee, Spey, Tay and Tweed. This is wild salmon, rare and expensive. But on the sea coast, as on almost any lake in Scotland, there are salmon farms, from “boutique” family farms, which mainly smoke fish themselves and sell it literally to their neighbors, to international giants supplying up to 160 thousand tons of Scottish salmon around the world.
The catch of wild Atlantic salmon () is limited and highly regulated, and salmon farming in lakes and coastal waters not only provides employment, but is also a major export for Scotland.
Scotland has very strict requirements for both fish culture rules and the quality of the final product. Despite this, modern aquaculture is constantly criticized by ecologists and all kinds of public organizations. But still, there is no one more important than an ordinary buyer, and every farmer who respects his work is interested in maintaining the cleanliness of reservoirs, and in the proper nutrition of fish, and in observing the rules for keeping it. The reputation of the farm is very important!
It is very easy to distinguish wild salmon from farm salmon if there is a whole fish in front of you: the tail of wild salmon is wide and powerful, because with its help the fish moves through the cold waters.
Of course, farmed salmon is fatter than wild, this is inevitable. On the other hand, thanks to aquaculture, salmon remains an affordable product, and the Scots can afford their favorite fish not only on holidays. By the way, in Scotland, salmon is most often smoked cold or hot, and not salted, as is customary in the Scandinavian countries. Cold smoked salmon – pink, firm and silky, lightly salted and with an unobtrusive aroma of smoke, which only emphasizes the taste of fish, without drowning it – is considered the quintessence of Scottish cuisine.
Incidentally, at the wedding of Kate (Middleton) and Prince William in 2011, salmon was served from a Scottish farm on Lake Duart.