Shades of orange

May 29, 2003

At John Carroll University, my friends could recognize me from across the quad because of the brilliant orange soccer socks I regularly wore. These socks were mementos of my days with the DeKalb High School varsity soccer team, orange and black being our school colors. I’m still partial to the color orange, and my favorite poem is Gary Soto’s Oranges.

Erin and I regularly broil salmon for dinner, and we love the orange flesh topped with lemon and lime juices, kosher salt and a cucumber-dill-yogurt dressing. But from the NY Times yesterday comes this gem:

... the little-known fact that farmed salmon are not naturally salmon pink or red, and that if they were not fed artificial colors they would range from gray or khaki to pale yellow or pale pink. Wild salmon turn pink from the krill and shrimp they eat. (Farmed salmon eat a fishmeal diet.)

See the rest of the article, and look for the picture of the SalmoFan, the color wheel that salmon farmers use to give their fish just the right amount of dye-inducing feed so that the salmon in the supermarket is an orange that you’ll recognize from down the aisle.

Anton Zuiker ☄