Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Go fish


[“Women working in the sardine cannery factory.” Photograph by Bernard Hoffman. Portugal, 1940. From the Life Photo Archive. Click for a larger view.]

On Saturday I posted a photograph of pasta aglio e olio and it spoke to at least two anchovy fans, maybe more. This photograph is for sardine connoisseurs, among whom I proudly number. Does that wording even make sense?

And speaking of making sense, or not: what is a “sardine cannery factory”? A place where they manufacture sardine canneries?

Related posts
Alex Katz, painter, eater Sardines for lunch, every day
City for Conquest (and sardines)
End of the U.S. sardine industry

[I proudly number sounds silly (which I knew) and makes sense. From the Oxford New American Dictionary: “include or classify as a member of a group.” Example: “the orchestra numbers Brahms among its past conductors.”]

comments: 13

Elaine said...

Someone got overly enthusiastic with the '-ery' suffix. Looks like the factory produces the cans for the sardine processing plant.

And I love sardines, tuna, and salmon from cans--the latter has those lovely bones!

The Crow said...

I made the anchovy pizza, with embellishments, put it in the oven, then took a call from my sister. You can see where this is headed, I know.

I did take pictures of the pizza-making process for a near-future blog post, replete with crime scene photos of the dead body. I ate most of it.

I also love the bones in canned fish, Elaine.

Marzek said...

I love sardines. Inexpensive, and nutrient-packed: more iron than spinach, more calcium than milk, more potassium than bananas. But I really eat them because they're tasty.
Favorites: !. Cube and boil potatoes 'til they're almost mashable, then mix with sardines, olive oil, butter & some crushed red pepper flakes.
2. A quick pasta sauce with canned white beans garlic, & whatever else you feel is right.

Oddly, I didn't start eating sardines until well into my adult years, and have no recollection of ever seeing them in our house growing up, but my mother says that my dad used to eat them with crackers - comfort food, something he ate when he was a kid. Genetic bias toward tinned fish?

Quite a staple of old cartoons, too!

Anonymous said...

To number too number two number "tu es" is;
Such is the grammarian's anchovy-est quiz.
Can you cannily can a can like those canners can,
Factor y anchovie con mucho gusto, for 'tis
The conundrum which drums for an anchovy whiz.
-- by Ann Jovial O'Brigado

Michael Leddy said...

Poetry, recipes, and them bones, them bones. I think the people who read and comment here must number among the most wonderful people in the world. Thank you, everyone.

Michael Leddy said...

Also, a silent correction of a typo. Thank you.

Matt Thomas said...

I'm trying to get into sardines, not having eaten them growing up, for some of the reasons articulated here: inexpensive, nutritious, versatile, etc. – but also because they’re sustainable, widely available, and, in their own way, very blue collar. I'm having trouble figuring out where to start though. Any brands/varieties you recommend? (Packed in olive oil or water or mustard or tomato sauce? From Europe or the Atlantic? Etc.) Any favorite recipes? (I consider on a cracker a recipe.) Keep the sardine-related posts coming.

Michael Leddy said...

I might be the wimp among the sardinists here, but I like skinless and boneless in olive oil. Seasons and Trader Joe’s are good brands. I have them with cracked wheat bread, sometimes with Dijon mustard and raw onion. Or with Saltines. That’s the way Lena Grove eats them in Light in August, riding into town in someone’s wagon.

Chris said...

I have to confess that we bought a can of sardines last year ostensibly for health reasons but I'm afraid to open it. I love anchovies, but sardines seem like fishbait to me.

The Crow said...

Oh, mustard-sauced sardines are fantastic! On very lightly buttered, dense German bread that looks like a piece of charred thin plywood but tastes nutty and out of this world.

(Here comes the melancholy over the absence of a good European[German]-style deli within a day's drive of here. My other favorite depression-era comfort meat - liverwurst with the rind of fat - is even better on that dark, dense blacker-than-the Black-Forest ... pardon me while I go weep in the corner.)

Fresca said...

Me too, I want to number among the best people in the world too!

Will this quote qualify me? It's from my favorite book in 8th grade (in fact, I haven't read it since but I remember it well (or so I think))---John Steinbeck's Cannery Row:

"“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses.

"Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gambler and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody.
Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen" and he would have meant the same thing.”

Michael Leddy said...

I’d say that qualifies. : ) I should read that book. Inspired by the sequel, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn wrote Suite Thursday.

Did you see the post about the end of canning in Maine?

Michael Leddy said...

Chris, if you bought them with skin and bones, I see things your way. I like whole fish, but only in larger sizes. Skinless and boneless sardines are easier on the eyes, or my eyes.