2019 was the International Year of the Salmon and aimed to protect salmon by bringing people together to share knowledge, raise public awareness and take action with the issues faced by this iconic species. According to the Atlantic Salmon Trust, the wild salmon population is in drastic decline. In the mid 1980s there were between eight and ten million salmon leaping around the Atlantic. That number has now plummeted to between two and three million, revealing a dramatic population freefall that shows no signs of levelling out.

Salmon is held dear in British hearts

My “Scotland granny” lived in Reay, on the north coast of Caithness, where my mother spent her summers growing up, and salmon was always plentiful. As a child I remember my father taking a plane to the Highlands to help granny with her finances, and flying seemed so decadent and exciting to us small untravelled people then. On his return we’d all troop along to the airport and he’d descend the escalator to cries of “He’s arrived!” While we were keen to have our long-lost traveller home it was the slim rush-basket he carried that caused so much excitement, because it contained a delicious four-kilo salmon. Luckily for us Granny always sent him home with this treat, for left to his own fishing skills he’d always have arrived empty-handed – he didn’t have the patience for fly fishing.

Next day mum would disappear to a friend’s and return with wafer-thin slices of smoked salmon which we devoured on hot buttered toast with our Sunday night scrambled eggs. It was drier, leaner and had a much stronger flavour than farmed salmon. A little went a long way, which meant it lasted for ages and we, being spoilt brats, would soon start complaining of having to eat smoked salmon again. Little did we realise how lucky we were: today, any friends who go salmon fishing say it’s a good day if they catch one, and they always return it to the water.

Salmon is held dear in British hearts, and it’s often a centrepiece for family celebrations. There’d be a huge outcry in my family if Christmas Day festivities didn’t start with a glass of fizz and smoked salmon blinis. We love them not just for their flesh but also for their incredible life journeys: hatching in fresh water, migrating to spend their adulthood on the open seas and returning to the same patch of river where they were born to spawn and die. There is much mystique and intrigue about them – in Irish folklore Finn McCool cooks and eats the wise old Salmon of Knowledge and thereby gains the wisdom of the world. In 1999, in celebration of the return of fish to the regenerated River Lagan, the city of Belfast erected a sculpture titled The Salmon of Knowledge and, according to local folklore, wisdom can still be gained by kissing its scales today.

Most scientists agree there are many, complex reasons for the fall in salmon numbers, of which intensive, open-net fish farming is one. Other factors include climate change, loss of habitat in rivers to support life cycles and instream barriers such as weirs preventing migration. Many fish biologists also maintain that farmed salmon have a negative impact on wild fish numbers. In particular, they highlight that farmed fish are often infested with parasitical sea lice, which they pass to wild salmon in such numbers that they prove fatal. The list goes on – such as that farmed salmon are fed from other fish caught in the wild, often in South America and West Africa, thereby depleting local stocks for our gain.

So, if you want to continue eating salmon, find a small fishery to source it. The closer you can get to a small, fisherman-direct source, the more likely you are to have access to salmon that is actually as clean (and wild) as possible.

We need more communication around food, and to use our intelligence when we buy. Though tempting for time-starved shoppers, it’s not enough just to scrutinise price tags, cellophane and plastic in the supermarket.

Salmon Fillets with Soy and Ginger

2tbsp each soy sauce and runny honey
1 tsp grated ginger
I garlic clove grated
1 tsp sesame oil
2 skin-on salmon fillets
1 red chilli, halved and finely sliced
1 spring onion, finely sliced

In a small bowl combine the soy, honey, ginger, garlic and sesame oil. Place the salmon fillets in a small ovenproof dish and spoon over the sauce. Scatter the chilli and spring onion and bake at 200°C for 15min. Serve with stir-fried vegetables and steamed rice.

Lydia Brownlow is a former cookery editor at Good Housekeeping magazine and contributor to The Daily Beast. She currently inspires children to cook. More info at lydiabrownlow.com