Fishing for wild skrei cod in chilly Norwegian waters
It’s rather extraordinary to be 300km north of the Arctic Circle, in the land of the Northern Lights, eating fresh cod – so fresh it was still swimming the fjords a couple of hours ago – with twoMichelin–starred chef Michel Roux Jr. But this isn’t just any old cod (and it’s certainly not battered).
Roux is a Norway Seafood Council skrei ambassador, and we’re in Troms0 (alongside a group of talented UK chefs) for skrei cod season, which runs from January to April.
The fish are muscular, hulking things, with red rimmed eyes and scales the colour of razor clam shells – and they’re a national delicacy.
Fishing for a skrei supper involves patience and thermals
Roux visits Troms0 for skrei season year after year, but promises: “It doesn’t lose any of the magic.”
Out on the fjords surrounding Sommar0y Island, an hour north of Troms0 airport, and squeezed into thickly padded onesies to ward off great sprays of seawater and the freezing temperatures (it’s minus eight-degrees), you can see his point. We’re flanked by ragged, snow-dusted mountains, the sun barely cresting their summits.
Our Sommar0y Cruises crew explain how the blackly swirling waters are invisibly divided up. Each fisherman has their own patch - the higher up the fishery food chain, the better your spot, and the newer you are to the skrei game, the further out your slot.
Captain Ketil Voll instructs us to reel our lines out - no bait needed until we can feel the weight hit the sea bed, and then swoop our rods back and forth in big, arcing motions (“You have to work to get the cod’s attention”).
My first catch is a silvery slip of a thing - and sadly not a skrei (“Cat food,” announces one of the crew), but my next two are; heavy on the line and wrestling powerfully until hoisted over the edge.
In previous years, the skrei would be sharing the water with orca, as well as whales feasting on herring, but this year the herring are absent, the water not being cool enough, which means no whales. Sea eagles still roil and whirl overhead though.
There’s an art to preparing and cooking skrei
Back on dry land, we tramp round Sommar0y fish factory, Ivan Lorentzen Fiskeforretning. The family-run enterprise - four generations and counting - has been in skrei production since 1896, and process around 2million kg of skrei each season.
At the nearby Sommar0y Arctic Hotel, we eat them deep-fried in breadcrumbs alongside cold king crab legs, whose sweet flesh falls in perfect snowwhite shards from their sunset-orange carapace. A traditional skrei meal means poached fish and potatoes “It’s so, so simple, and the fish is so clean,” says Roux. “When it’s this fresh, nothing is so good.” Ella Walker was a guest of the Norwegian Seafood Council. Skrei is available during the January-April season from Harrods, Selfridges, Booths, Whole Foods Market, quality fishmongers and top restaurants (season timings according to the migratory progress of the skrei).