He went to the bottom of the globe and saw dolphins and penguins up close in the wild. He ate eucalyptus ice cream at one of Santiago s most famous restaurants and cooked alongside a Chilean chef. What was designed to be a tour of Chile s resurrected salmon industry became five days that Kim Burow, Hy-Vee corporate executive chef, won t forget. Burow was invited by Salmon of the Americas one of the world s largest producers of salmon to tour its rebuilt farms that had been devastated five years ago by a deadly virus. Chef Kim joined a group of media members and food industry experts to see the safety measures, including stepped-up government oversight, that have been put in place to prevent a repeat of the disaster. The days started at 7 a.m. Bedtime was midnight or later. The only people awake that early in Chile are usually tourists, Burow says. Everyone else doesn t get up until 10, and then they don t eat dinner until nine or 10 p.m. On top of that, everyone eats slowly, which is probably why they are all so skinny. The tour group was kept busy with meetings and PowerPoint presentations from presidents, CEOs, board chairmen, managers,
farmers, scientists, veterinarians and government officials. It was so much information, sometimes my head was spinning, he says. But the message was consistent and clear. The quality of fish is better than ever, Chef Kim says. They practice full transparency now, full transparency about what happened and full transparency so those mistakes won t happen again. Between the meetings, Chef Kim and the group visited a farm and got to see the operation first-hand from the hatchery, to young salmon, to mature fish ready for the marketplace. There were 22 pens, each with 40,000 fish, which is half the amount they held before the virus struck. Each farm has state-of-the-art underwater cameras, temperature controls, feeding processes and frequent inspections. The most impressive part of the trip to Chef Kim was the people. The people have such a passion for raising the fish, he says. They
were gracious, warm, helpful and they want to get the message out about the salmon industry. The workers live at the farm, like a large neighborhood, and run the operation 24 hours a day for 10 days straight, followed by four days off. A few days into the weeklong trip, after learning more about salmon farming than most chefs will in a lifetime, Chef Kim finally got to test the Chilean salmon on his terms, in the kitchen. He joined a young chef fresh out of culinary school at Se Cocina Frutillar, a restaurant in Frutillar, Chile, operated by a mother and her three daughters. The eatery is nearly fully sustainable, with the menu s ingredients coming from two gardens. Chickens, ducks, pigs and sheep are raised nearby. Chef Kim and his Chilean counterpart went to work. I was a little worried, he didn t speak any English, he says. I did cook in California for a while, but the only Spanish I know are product
names. Culinary art transcended any language barriers. In an hour, they came up with a menu: salmon ceviche with fresh rhubarb, roasted pumpkin soup with cream and honey, braised pork shank with balsamic vinegar and figs, fire-roasted salmon sides in fumetto (seafood stock) infused with herbs, poached free-range chicken with roasted squash and cinnamon and coconut crème brûlée. It was wild, Chef Kim says. We cooked salmon that was one hour old. We literally took it out of the water and brought it with us to the restaurant. When it was time for the chicken course, in comes the 14- year-old daughter with two chickens missing their heads. The trip came to a close back in Santiago, where the visitors enjoyed a meal at Emilio, one of Chile s most famous restaurants and home of the eucalyptus ice cream. He was interviewed by a reporter in Santiago and the president of SalmonChile invited him back to teach the salmon workers how to cook the product they are so passionate about.
I ve worked with a lot of chefs in my career promoting seafood and can say that Chef Kim ranks at the very top, says the group s tour guide for the week, Jeanne McKnight. Chef Kim says the people he met, the food he ate and cooked and the knowledge he now has of the salmon industry have made him a better chef. Salmon is more than just a fillet of fish to me. I know how protected it is and how much it means to the people who produce it. I have a new respect for it, he says. As for Chile, he says, it s a beautiful country with passionate people, and the friendships I made will last forever. It was a life-changer.