Smoking, salting and pickling are ancient techniques to extend the shelf life of foods such as caviar, mojama or bottarga, anchovies, olives, capers, pickles and piparras, to name a few. These techniques, cousins of fermentation, have not only survived to this day, but in recent years we have incorporated them again into our homes and pantries and also, fortunately, into haute cuisine restaurants.
A product that stands out among them all is smoked salmon, whose production dates back millennia, when fishermen in northern Europe dried their catches next to a bonfire because the sun, wind and salt were not suitable (McGee, Harold. Cooking and food. Barcelona, 2007). Smoking fish increases its conservation time, but also, as happens with other foods (caviar, cured ham, cod and, of course, anchovy), it enhances its properties and elevates a product of little gastronomic interest to the category of delicacy.
And among all the smoked salmon that I have tried, there is one that stands out above the rest, it is that of Carlos Piernas del Amor (Mataró, 1965), that of Carpier —which, by the way, rhymes with Cartier. And Mr. Piernas, Carlos, a chef trained in the kitchens of El Racó de Can Fabes and Gaig, in 1995 decided—at a very good time—to dedicate himself to smoking, and the planets then decided to align.
Carpier claims to smoke with pine cones from Maresme which, without a doubt, contribute to the final result of the product. I am sure that the success of the flavor and texture of his salmon is due, in addition to the pineapples, to his talent for selecting the fish and the rest of the ingredients that go into its preparation.
But what makes Carpier salmon excellent, a great product, is Carlos' passion. Passion is an ingredient that cannot be bought or sold, you have it, you share it (or not) and that's it. It is the same passion that Carlos displays excessively in the events in which he participates.
I have had the honor of attending some of the many festivals in which Carpier has participated, with Carlos always at the forefront, cutting, disseminating, directing and observing (I sense that all geniuses are great observers); like in that legendary Pitu Roca wine tasting in the Camp Nou llotja, like in that memorable lunch that he organized at his house for the Redcoats or at the Das1219 wedding that they celebrated in La Cerdanya and, more recently, in the unforgettable gastronomic experience that a good friend offered us for his 60th birthday, in Santa Fe, where Carlos did not leave a single detail to chance and the light of the exquisiteness of the event shone almost more than the generosity of the honoree himself.
It is this same passion that we were unable to find in the cradle of smoking, Norway, where on the eleven-day road trip we took in search of the northern lights and the best smoked salmon in the world, we were unable to find the latter. I dare to affirm, without blushing and without too much fear of being wrong, that Carpier salmon is on the podium of the best smoked salmon in the world: You will roll the món and you will return to the Born.
