Sardines and sardines

[From Hearings of the General Tariff Revision before the Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives, 1921. Joseph W. Fordney of Michigan chaired. George O’Hara represented the Associated Importers of Food Products, New York. Click for a larger view.]

The Chairman. In your opinion, what creates the chief difference between the retail prices, they are somewhere near the same size.

Mr. O’Hara. The quality, absolutely nothing else.

The Chairman. The quality?

Mr. O’Hara. The quality, yes; there is no such thing as a sardine on the Maine coast. Those sardines on the Maine coast are shipped south and sold to the negroes. They are sold as low as $3.50 and $4 a case, I believe. They are also sent to the large centers and sold in the sweat shops in the large commercial centers where a man buys a 5-cent tin of sardines and a package of Uneeda Biscuit and calls that his lunch.

I have always thought of sardines as a poor-people’s food: my dad, as a boy, had a sardine sandwich for lunch every damn schoolday. But now I understand that there were sardines and there were sardines. O’Hara goes on to say that what’s packaged in Maine is herring, not sardines. He mentions a tin of domestic “sardines” selling seven cents and a tin of French sardines selling for ten times as much.

Fordney follows this exchange with some fulminating: “In the South I employ negro labor”; “I know that the negroes are well fed”; “I know that the negro has a better lunch than that.” (Fordney was in the lumber business.) But no one on the committee disputes the sardine-and-cracker lunch of the sweatshop worker.

And speaking of sardines and crackers.

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[Seventy cents in 1921 = $9.32 in 2015.]

Sardines in translation

Spotted in Whole Foods, a jar of rather expensive sardines, with text in Spanish and English:

Las Sardinas Ortiz se elaboran en fresco. Se limpian a mano una a una y se fríen en eceite de oliva a la Antigua. Las Sardinas mejoran su sabor con los años, haciéndose más melosas y delicadas.

The Ortiz Sardines are elaborated with fresh fish. They are cleaned by hand one by one and fried in olive oil at old style. Sardines improve its taste over a period of years, making them taste unctuous and delicated.

“Unctuous and delicated”: Whatever they’re charging for these fish (it was $7.99 or $8.99 a jar), it’s apparently not enough to pay for a good translation. My try (improvements are welcome):

Ortiz Sardines begin as fresh fish. Each fish is cleaned by hand and fried in olive oil as in the old days. The sardines’ flavor improves over time, becoming more mellow and delicate.

I hesitated at “con los años,” not wanting to suggest that these sardines have been sitting around for years. But who knows? The expiration date on the jar: 2022.

I couldn’t bring myself to buy these sardines. I suspected that, as with ultra-expensive whiskey, the difference in flavor is probably not worth the difference in price. Maybe another time, if I’m giddy enough.

And while we are on the subject of sardines (or at least while I am), here is a short piece by Aaron Gilbreath: Ode to Canned Fish. Thanks to Mike at BrownStudies for passing on the link.

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[Click on the little jar for a much bigger jar.]

Cole’s Portuguese sardines

French sardines, they say, are the best. Portuguese sardines, they also say, are the best. They say so many things, don’t they?

When I spotted, in our international grocery, a single can of Cole’s smoked Portuguese sardines, I had to have it, or them. When I pulled the lid, after waiting for more than a week, I found five sardines. They were skin-and-bones sardines, but with the meatiness of their skinless and boneless kin. They tasted light and smoky, like an elegant, mysterious appetizer. There was nothing fishy about these sardines. They were great. They were sardinhas espectaculares.

The only problem: price. Our nearby international grocery charges $7.99 for a can. The Cole’s website, as I have discovered, sells the same can for $3.99. Even that price seems steep. But $3.99 for an occasional treat? That’s reasonable. Cole’s also has skinless and boneless Portuguese sardines, $4.99 a can. I’ll bite.

I have yet to see French sardines in person, or in a can. Et toi?

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Sardines and capellini

A first rule of blogging: no one cares what you had for lunch. I think it’s pretty clear that the rule’s creator was not a sardinista.

Inspired by Crow’s sardine saga and Chris’s account of sardines and linguini, I tried putting sardines and capellini (angel hair) together for lunch. I started the pasta, smashed and chopped two cloves of garlic, let them brown (just slightly) in olive oil, and added a can of skinless and boneless sardines in olive oil, chopped parsley, and red-pepper flakes. The sardines smelled pretty funky in the hot oil. But the dish was a delight: far more flavorful than pasta with tuna and lemon, and sweeter than good old aglio e olio (which I make with anchovies). Parmesan and black pepper: nice additions, but hardly necessary.

I will be making sardines and capellini again soon, even if no one cares.

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[I am happy and sad to see that sardinista already has some currency. I made it up all by myself, but too late.]

Sardines, a game

From the Peppa Pig episode “Chloé’s Big Friends” (first aired November 22, 2010). Cousin Chloé’s friends Belinda Bear and Simon Squirrel don’t really want to play what they call “baby games.” They’re almost grownup! And they’ve already sneered at Hide and Seek.

Peppa: “Let’s play another game. Have you ever played Sardines?”

Belinda: “What’s that?”

Chloé: “Someone hides, and we all try to find them.”

Simon: “That sounds like Hide and Seek.”

Chloé: “But when you find them, you keep quiet and hide in the same space until everyone is hiding there.”

Peppa: “Like sardines in a tin!”

I’d never heard of it, but the Internets confirm that Sardines, the game, is a thing.

*

Later in the day: The Oxford English Dictionary has this definition: “A party game of hide-and-seek, in which each seeker joins the hider upon discovery until one seeker remains. Also sardines-in-the (also a)-box (U.S.).”

The dictionary’s first citation, from Mendell and Meynell’s Weekend Book, says that “Sardines is gaudier still” and goes on to explain the game. (Gaudier than what?) The next citation is more interesting: “‘Hide-and-go-seek’ or ‘sardines-in-the-box’ with all the house thrown open to the game.” From F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925).

Also from Peppa Pig: Edmund Elephant is a clever clogs.

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Oliver Sacks and sardines

Henri Cole remembers Oliver Sacks:

Once when I gave him Cole’s Portuguese sardines in piri piri sauce, he opened a tin immediately and ate the sardines while standing at the kitchen counter. I think sardines were his secret to long life and acuteness of mind, or maybe they were just a leftover from his bachelor days. In my cupboard, I have several tins of Norwegian sardines in olive oil that Oliver presented to me.

I imagine that this page is seeing more than its usual number of visits today.

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New directions in sardines

I opened a can of skinless and boneless sardines for lunch. In olive oil. Sliced a onion. Made a little lump of Dijon mustard. Took out some bread. And then I thought: what about barbecue sauce?

We have a bottle of Memphis-style sauce, nearly empty, in the fridge. Elaine, encouraging, not warning: “Try just a dab.” I did. Many dabs followed. Many, many dabs.

Sardines and barbecue sauce are out of sight: delicious and no longer visible. I am a member of the Clean Plate Club, and I owe it all to sardines and barbecue sauce. As they used to say on television, Try some today.

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[Matt, this could be the recipe you’re looking for.]

“Sardines in instant cans”

[Life, July 24, 1964. Click for a larger, fishier view.]

What will they think of next? Perhaps a way to make sardines more photogenic. Oh, wait — it’s been fifty years.

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[The lunch hour approaches.]

Various Sardines

MY Sardines, if it’s even real, is a cryptocurrency backed by sardines. Here is the MY Sardines homepage. Go fish.

I’ll stay here, with some other sardines, the Hot Sardines, performing a song made popular by Louis Prima and Phil Harris. Hot stuff. Thanks, Martha.

Sushi sardines

Sardines play a part in the 2014 film St. Vincent (dir. Theodore Melfi). Taking on some impromptu work in afterschool childcare, grouchy old Vincent (Bill Murray) prepares a meal of canned fish and crackers for the kid next door, Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher). “You’re gettin’ sushi,” Vincent says. But Oliver knows better. Click any image for a larger view.


[One: Locate sardines and crackers. The rectangle top right said to me sardines, maybe . I was hoping.]


[Two: Arrange into festive platter. Add hot sauce.]


[Three: Pour fishy liquid from can into glass. For what? Dipping the crackers? Who in their right mind — filmmakers, that was so tacky.]


[Four: All gone, or nearly so.]

The food is all for Oliver. Vincent sticks to whiskey. As we later learn, he buys sardines for himself and “gourmet cat food” for his, uh, cat. And that’s just one example of his saintliness.

With Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, and Naomi Watts on board, St. Vincent could have been a much more engaging film. As it is, the story is painfully predictable. (For crying out loud: the title gives it away.) The moment when I knew the film was beyond redemption: a wheelchair race through hospital hallways. Unforgivable.

But there are sardines.

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Sardines, paste, pasta

Here’s a recipe for sardine paste. Paste? As Steven points out, pâté would sound far more appetizing. Thanks, Steven.

And here’s a description of Nigella Lawson’s sardines and spaghetti, heralded as “the dish of summer.”

I know that when it comes to cooking, there is very little that’s new under the sun. In 2015 The Crow wrote about a then-forty-year-old memory of sardines and cavatini. And shortly thereafter, Chris at Dreamers Rise left a comment on this blog about making sardines with linguine. Which in turn inspired me to try sardines with capellini. Mangia.

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[The article about the Lawson recipe describes a “tomatoey” dish, but there are no tomatoes in the recipe.]

Dr. Watson’s sardines

[From The Hound of the Baskervilles (dir. Sidney Lanfield, 1939).]

“Here, try some of these sardines”: Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) offers Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) a bite to eat. These sardines have cinematic reality only: there are no sardines in the novel’s stone hut, only tinned peaches and tongue.

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Dr. Watson’s prose, however

Pizza with sardines

[From our kitchen. We prepare all dishes with a vignette filter.]

The war is on. Germany has invaded France. The unnamed narrator of Anna Seghers’s novel Transit has fled Paris. Stuck in Marseille, he lives on cigarettes, coffee, pizza, and rosé. Pizza for him is new:

Back then I was surprised to find out that pizza wasn’t sweet but tasted of pepper, olives, or sardines.

A sardine pizza? Our household’s curiosity went into overdrive. I found a recipe that called for baking the crust once (fifteen minutes) and then again (eighteen to twenty minutes). Huh? Elaine decided to do her own thing.

The ingredients:

1 teaspoon dry yeast
¾ cup water
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ teaspoon kosher salt
Bob’s Red Mill whole-wheat pastry flour
    and King Arthur white flour, equal parts

2 onions, sliced
1 tablespoon butter
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
some black pepper
1 can skinless and boneless sardines
    in olive oil, drained and chopped
8 oz. finely shredded Italian cheese
    (the usual supermarket offering)

The directions:

Dissolve yeast in water. Add olive oil and salt. Wait a few minutes; then begin stirring in flour. Knead, and let dough rise in a towel-covered bowl for 50 minutes. Elaine says you’ll need to knead to know how much flour you might have to add. It’ll vary with the weather. She adds flour half a cup at a time.

Melt butter in a pan. Add onions and salt. Caramelize the onions on medium heat.

Roll out the dough and assemble the pizza — sardines first, then onions, then cheese. Bake at 400° for about twenty minutes.

The result was spectacular: savory, fishy, absolutely satisfying. Very Mediterranean. We added some red pepper flakes at the table and drank some cheap rosé. Elaine had a few leaves of fresh basil with her slices. I found the basil took too much away from the taste of the sardines.

In 2013 New York Review Books published Transit (1944) in a translation by Margot Bettauer Dembo. In 2018 the novel was adapted for the screen by Christian Petzold. I recommend the novel, the film, and this pizza with great enthusiasm.

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[There’s nothing missing from the recipe. It’s a sauceless pizza.]

Sardines of the Times

In The New York Times, Tejal Rao writes about canned fish. Among them, sardines:

Good canned fish can be eaten just the way it is, dripping with olive oil, but I like a tin’s worth of sardines seasoned with plenty of lemon zest, soft oregano leaves and some fried bread crumbs, broken up a bit and warmed all the way through as it’s tossed with cooked spaghetti, olive oil and maybe a ripe tomato, squashed between my fingers.

I’ve done sardines and pasta with garlic, parsley, and red-pepper flakes. The oregano is new to me. Must try.

Again and again, Matt Thomas’s Sunday Times digests point me to items I would otherwise miss — like these sardines. Thanks, Matt.

*

July 25: I made this dish last night, minus the tomato. Pretty bland. Some suggestions: add salt, pepper, and lemon juice, and be prepared to use more oregano than seems plausible. I think that thyme or lemon thyme might be a good substitute for oregano.

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Satan’s seafood

[Life, June 1, 1959.]

I would have thought that the archfiend made his minions do the seasoning.

In my childhood, all sardines came from Martel. But eaters of a certain age may recall Underwood Sardines. The company’s FAQ page notes that the sardine line “was discontinued years ago.”

Underwood of course is best known for its Deviled Ham. Again, from the Underwood FAQ: “The Underwood Devil logo, which was registered in 1870, is believed to be the oldest registered trademark still in use for a prepackaged food product in the United States.” The Straight Dope has an excellent survey of deviled-food history.

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[Field & Stream, June 1977.]

Yes, sardines are addictive. Street names: bait, Moroccan greys, Norwegian kings. I scored four cans of kings last night, on sale, two for five.

This post is for Matt Thomas, who seems to be intent on developing a sardine habit.

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La Quiberonnaise sardines

[La Quiberonnaise sardines in extra-virgin olive oil and lemon.]

My friend Jim Koper gave me a can of La Quiberonnaise sardines to try. The can describes them as millésimées, “vintage.” They are the product of a company that has been canning since 1921. And they’re expensive: $9-something a can here in the States, which means that they cost three or four times as much as everyday sardines. They’re excellent. But are they three or four times better than everyday sardines? Not to my taste. Nor to Jim’s. La Quiberonnaise seems to be a case (or can) of diminished returns. But a beautiful can.

Thanks, Jim.

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[Why “three or four times as much” and not “three or four times more”? Because usage.]

Brunswick Sardines

From the CBC series We Are the Best, the story of Brunswick Sardines. The French and the Portuguese might have something to say about the assertion that Canadian sardines are the best. But I have no skin (or skinless and boneless) in this game: the sardines I buy hail from Morocco.

Thanks to Martha, The Crow, fellow sardinista, for sharing this link.

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Audrey Hepburn and sardines

[Audrey Hepburn as Sabrina Fairchild in Sabrina (dir. Billy Wilder, 1954). Click for a larger view.]

Linus Larrabee (Humphrey Bogart) has been looking through the cabinets in the company offices. There must be something to eat. Tomato juice, puffed rice, sardines, tomato juice, tomato juice. Sabrina appears lost in meditation as she holds a can of sardines.

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Gill Sans

[“Perils Of Julia And Gill Man — Movie Julia Adams.” Photograph by Edward Clark. Alterations by me. From the Life Photo Archive. Click for a larger, gillier view.]

Once upon a time, the Creature, or the Gill-Man, was one of the monster models made by Aurora Plastics, along with Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, and the Wolfman. The makeup of that quintet bugged me. Four of them: classics. But the fifth? Now he’s a spokesgill-man for the sardine industry.

Scale models — cars, dinosaurs, monsters, planes — were once a fairly standard part of boyhood. Testors Glue, Testors Enamel Paints, decals: necessary stuff, like sardines.

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[Gill Sans? Sans sardines. The font I’ve used for “got sardines?” is the free CGPhenixAmerican.]