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I’ve always wanted to love smoked salmon, as there are so many great dishes and rituals I associate with it. The muslin covered lemon half. Slapped between the two halves of a bagel with cream cheese. Paper thin on crust-less brown bread with good butter.

But I’ve just never really enjoyed it, particularly the texture, which I’ve always found a bit slimy. Fine if it was cooked through in something like scrambled eggs but not going for the simpler servings. Until now.

The people at Forman & Field offered to send me a sample of their London Cure smoked salmon, and of course I said yes, always game to try most things. According to their information, this cure was created by their founder, Harry Forman, and was designed to show off the fish, rather than disguise it (you can imagine this may have been the aim at some point of unscrupulous fishmongers!). He wanted to be able to taste the fish, not the smoke.

Now, I really like salmon, even if I’ve never loved the smoked stuff before. What I loved about this was that it was most definitely not slimy in texture, it was firm, mildly smokey flavoured and tasted of salmon but not fishy. It was as delicious on its own as it was stirred through a pasta sauce. It does say on the site that this is low in salt, and I can believe this, as we had to season quite heavily when cooking with it.

If you wanted to give a smoked salmon lover a real treat, then you could treat them to a whole unsliced side, perfect for a big party or special occasion. All those things I love about it, the ceremony and ritual, could be amplified by bringing this to the table and slicing it yourself. Make sure the recipient is confident about handling it though, as a whole side would come untrimmed and in need of pin boning. Worth the effort though I imagine!

You can treat someone to the London Cure from £9.95, with a whole side being £42.50, but they do reckon you could feed 12 to 14 from that. You could also add in black bread with caraway or Peter’s Yard crispbreads to a gift, so that they can tuck into this straight away. I also thought their gravadlax selection looked both interesting, with cures including beetroot and a wasabi and ginger cure, as well as good value at £7.50.

Forman & Field have never struck me as the cheapest place to hunt for a gift for a food lover, but if everything comes up to this standard then they’re definitely delivering quality for the money. Which makes it a good source for the future to me.

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