Photo by George Mahe
A 2-piece, hand-battered jack salmon dinner, $8.19 at Porter's Fried Chicken in Maplewood
What is jack salmon, and is it a St. Louis thing? —Jason L., St. Louis
When I was a youngster, I remember marveling at the sight of jack salmon, a skinny, foot-long, batter-fried, bone-in/tail-on fin fish sitting in a grocery store hot case along with a dozen near-similar specimens...and swearing I’d never eat one. And I didn’t, until decades later.
As with sardines and sushi, I had been missing out on some good eating.
Technically, a “jack” is a male salmon that returns to spawn one year sooner than other adult salmonand therefore is smaller in size. Realistically, jack salmon aren’t salmon at all, but most often refer to the Midwestern name given to the Pacific whiting, a saltwater fish also known as hake.
At this point, the discussion gets murky. In Baltimore, whiting is called lake trout. Merriam-Webster equates jack salmon with the freshwater walleye, which are found in the Mississippi and Missouri river systems and its tributaries. So despite its ties to the Pacific Ocean, it’s also possible for anglers in the Ozarks to legitimately bring home a stringerof jack salmon (orits cousin, the sauger). All of that confusion aside, if you see a jack salmon on a local menu, chances are it’s a Pacific whiting, a mild whitefish that's similar to cod in taste, but witha smaller flake.
As to whether jack salmon is “a St. Louis thing,” that answer is most likely. According to this article on Dr. Harley Hammerman’s Lost Tables website, a menu from the legendary Dohack’s claimed that jack salmon had been “a Dohack’s specialty since 1923.” The assumption was that “when the restaurant called whiting 'jack salmon'on its menu, the name became a tradition in St. Louis restaurants.”
Nowadays, jack salmon can be found on everyday menus at most of the local chicken and fish houses, sometimes offered as fried fillets but more often served whole, which shouldn’t be a deterrent. Bone-in fish tends to be moister and more flavorful than fillets, and whiting pulls very easily off the firm, hard bone.
Should you see it at a fish fry in the next few weeks—and you will—I suggest you pass on the cod and ask for some “jack.”
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George Mahe
Mahe is St. Louis Magazine's dining editor. Like this story? Want to share other feedback? Send Mahe an email at gmahe@stlmag.com.
