Mosaico Food Experience and its wild Coda Nera

Blacktail Sockeye: The Wild Salmon for True Connoisseurs

The latest is Blacktail Sockeye: a wild Alaskan salmon that owes its name—meaning "red"—to the color of its flesh, which is darker than other species because it feeds naturally and is omnivorous. It is a salmon with a particularly delicate flavor, a texture that makes it perfect for cold smoking, and is particularly rich in nutritional properties. But Sockeye salmon is also an example of how to fish according to nature's rhythms. After all, it's no coincidence that Alaska is home to one of the largest and healthiest salmon populations on the planet, nor is it a coincidence that Le Nef, with Blacktail, chose to source the raw material for this new product right here in Alaska.

Where does sustainable Blacktail Sockeye salmon come from?

If wild salmon are consistently plentiful in Alaska, it's thanks to very strict regulations. The Constitution explicitly states that all seafood must be used, developed, and conserved according to the principle of sustainable exploitation. For this reason, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game manages the fishery by setting "escape targets" that allow a sufficient number of adult spawning salmon to escape capture and reach their spawning grounds. However, to ensure these escape quotas are stable, commercial fishing fluctuates: this means that there are years with more fish and others with fewer, more or less fortunate years. But the fish can also be larger or smaller.

How Blacktail Sockeye is produced

Coda Nera has accepted the challenge: every fishing season, they travel to Alaska to inspect their purchases. After freezing and transporting it in small batches to avoid compromising its quality, they thaw it and begin processing it fresh in Italy, in a recently opened 4,000-square-meter facility in Osimo. A factory of the future, it's produced using an age-old method: "la Ficelle" smoking. For years, this recipe has been the preserve of the great courts of the Baltics, requiring a meticulous preparation method, with the master smoker personally overseeing every stage: hand filleting, light salting, slow maturation, drying, and delicate wood-fire smoking.

All Blacktail salmon are smoked using this technique. The only difference with Blacktail Sockeye is that the bones are removed after, rather than before, smoking, as the flesh is too firm. Like other products in the Blacktail line, Sockeye salmon is also free of sugar, in keeping with a philosophy that permeates the entire company's production process and preserves the quality of the fish.

All Black Tail specialties

There are three other specialties, all with very special flavors that connoisseurs have long appreciated: the Classic Black Coda, with tender, orange flesh and a delicate flavor, with a light smoky aroma, available in fillets, flanks, and slices of superior quality, skinless, fat-free, and without dark parts. Then there's the Black Coda Riserva: a salmon obtained from an exclusive cut, with tender, lean flesh, a bold orange color, a delicate flavor, and a light smoky aroma, available in fillets. Finally, in addition to fillets, the Coda Nera Gran Riserva is also available as a whole flank: like the Riserva, it is obtained from salmon raised in the waters of Skjervøy Island, in the far north of Norway, but only from the largest fish. Another excellence, with tender, lean flesh, a bold orange color, and a delicate flavor, with a light smoky aroma. Try them all, each time for a different experience.