G
oogle “salmon crossing the
road” and you’ll find dozens of
videos of me and my pals skit-
tering across wet streets and high-
ways like windup toys on a mission.
Cars slow and stop to let us cross,
water spraying from our flicking tails
as we navigate this unnatural land-
scape and flop back into the river on
the other side.
The videos capture me after I’ve
been away at sea for up to five years,
traversing thousands of miles while
eating the pink-orange krill that give
my flesh its trademark rosy color.
To guide me on this trek, I use my
uniquely astute inner GPS (which taps
into the earth’s magnetic fields) to
get me closer to my birthplace. Then
I begin to sniff out the specific river
where I was hatched. I head home to
reproduce and, alas, usually to die—
possibly after crossing a road or two.
When your local fishmonger or
waiter distinguishes me as “wild,” you
should know that it is a loose category
indeed. The eight living species of
me—seven in the Pacific—blur bound-
aries enough that an Atlantic salmon is
actually more closely related to a trout
from the Northeast than to a salmon
from the Pacific, while Pacific salmon
are more closely tied to West Coast
rainbow trout than to Atlantic salmon.
More to the point, I am so exqui-
sitely adjusted to the very river I was
born in that my size, my shape, and
maybe even how I taste are specific
to—and determined by—that locale. IfBy Kate Lowenstein
and Daniel GritzerSalmon
For This Big
Fish, There’s
No Place
Like Home
I Am theFOOD
ON YOUR
PLATE
rd.com | may 2019 53ro
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Reader’s Digest