NY Times: So Pink, So New York
"People use lox as a general term Û bagel and lox Û but what is traditional and genuine lox is not smoked salmon at all," said Mr. Federman's daughter Niki, who also works at the shop. "It is a salmon cured in salt brine. No refrigeration needed. When people come into the store, they ask for lox, and we say, `Are you sure?' "
Terry Huggins, charcuterie manager at Dean & DeLuca, has not sold a piece of lox since 1990. Even at Barney Greengrass, that emporium of nostalgia, lox doesn't sell well, and Saul Zabar himself prefers the more modern, Nova-style smoked fish. Today, most of the Sunday-morning salmon sold in New York Û 2,500 pounds each week at Zabar's alone Û is not lox, but lightly salted and smoked salmon.
Holy moly that's a lot of fish!
Much of the salmon at emporiums like Zabar's, Fairway, Barney Greengrass, Russ & Daughters and Dean & DeLuca actually comes from Acme Smoked Fish, a third-generation smokehouse in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Acme's day begins at 4 a.m. The fish are prepared Nova style, cured in salt, water and brown sugar, before being cold-smoked on racks in a large oven. Fruitwood shavings burn in a small stove, making the 50,000-square-foot factory smell incongruously of a campfire. The salmon, whether farmed fish from Norway, Chile and the Faeroe Islands, or wild Pacific salmon from Alaska, is processed identically.
