Alaskan Jerky!

When we visited the Ulu factory ( of earlier post fame), Mr Eating Alaska was drawn to a display of various types of jerky, as often happens. As this is Alaska, there was no beef jerky. (You can find standards in the stores, but this is a tourist place.) He bought and eagerly consumed venison, caribou, buffalo, and salmon -yes, salmon - jerky.

The various game meats were...well, they were gamy. Descriptive words that come to mind are meaty, jerked - pretty much exactly what you would expect. They were, like the reindeer dogs (of earlier post fame), kind of like beef in texture, but not in flavor. I took a bite of each, and particularly liked the caribou. It had the most distinctive flavor of the bunch - very savory. Of course, it's hard to tell how much of that was the jerk flavor and how much was caribou itself.

So...the salmon jerky. It was different from the other jerkies. First off, the texture was different. It flaked apart when bitten, where the game meats had to be torn off, like beef does. Second, it was oilier. This is not a bad thing, it wasn't greasy, there's just an intrisic oiliness to it. Third, it definitely smells like fish. There is more of fish smell than a taste. It tasted more of the jerky than salmon itself. On the balance, it was interesting - not bad, but not great either. Although I am sure there are people who absolutely love the stuff, it seemed more of a curiousity to me than something I would eat on a regular basis.