Some books devote themselves to a single subject and tell it better than anyone. The Salmon Set is the monograph our kitchen has written on salmon: forty-two pieces, one protagonist.

Salmon earns the attention, because few fish carry this many faces. In sashimi it is cool and silken; in nigiri it loosens and sweetens against the warmth of the rice; in a roll it starts a family with avocado and cheese; introduced to flame, its fat wakes and it speaks in another voice entirely. The same fish, in a different language at every corner of the board.

The explanation for this many-sidedness is the lacework of fat threaded through the flesh; that marbled weave gives salmon its color, its silk, and the handsome answer it returns to fire. Freshness is the other requirement, for salmon’s silk does not survive a wasted day.

Recalling that salmon’s arrival at the sushi counter is barely a generation old lends the board an extra meaning: every piece in this set is heir to a story of persuasion that traveled from the far end of the seas.

By the end of forty-two pieces you will not merely love salmon; you will know it.