“Everyone Loves This Food Trend, But I’m A Food Journalist & I Absolutely Hate It”

I hate that I hate tinned fish. It is not that it is inconvenient, really, but more because I feel quite left out. I see my fellow savoury comrades creating platters and assortments of razor clams, of octopus and of anchovies — I want to know that joy, I want to taste what they are tasting. Unfortunately, all I can taste is stagnant water in a mucky, shallow, saltwater pond. 

I’ve tried; I’ve really and honestly tried. The last several weeks, I’ve dipped my toes in the most popular of them, tried them with open-minded testers and emphatic lovers alike. This is how it went.

Unfortunately, all I can taste is stagnant water in a mucky, shallow, saltwater pond. 

Smoked Mussels 

I love mussels. I love moules frites. I love a warm bite of a shellfish with cooked shallots and parsley clinging to it as a creamy white wine broth drips from its flesh. I love putting it on a piece of bread; I love eating it in the same bite as a shoestring fry. I love mussels. In the presence of tinned mussels, I felt hopeful; perhaps this is a good place to start. I thought. Until the stench slapped me in the face with a dead fish. Reluctantly, I persisted. Apparently, the tinned fish community, of which I have no right to claim, enjoys these on a sweet corn cracker with a dot of hot honey. Trust me, it’s amazing! Said my big sister, of whom I base my taste on. The response, from her at least, was that it was delicious. From me, disgusting. How could our reactions sit in such stark contrast? Why am I not seeing what she’s seeing? I tried three more; I dipped bread in the olive oily brine, looked for the smokiness she was pointing at, and found only the faint taste of mud. I moved on. 

Albacore Tuna With Spanish Lemon 

Perhaps this would be better; ashamedly, I do love and defend a spicy tunacado. Tuna, after all, is the only tinned fish I find myself craving. I pride myself on having a tuna salad recipe “better than anyone else’s in the world”. I get over the mild malodor of tinned tuna and mask it with copious amounts of lemon, capers, dill, maybe even horseradish. Naively, I thought this would be an easy win — tuna on sourdough with lemon. I’ll admit, it wasn’t horrible, but I was almost underwhelmed, left with a slightly saline taste in my mouth. In the end, I reached for barbecue chips to obscure the aftertaste. While I wouldn’t say this about many things in life, tinned tuna only fits in my life slathered in mayonnaise. 

Mussels In Escabeche

I returned to the humble mussel with intention this time. Escabeche, this will surely do! Perhaps it was the smokiness of the previous presentation, the plainness, the lack of added pizazz. Escabeche, a  Mediterranean marinade of oils, vinegars, paprika, and garlic, would surely alter this experience greatly. While I was right in feeling that the experience would be altered — doused in oil with the welcome paprika palette — it still laid the base for that same palette. Murky, turbid water. 

Sardines With Preserved Lemon 

Perhaps not a good place to start for a sceptic, but I had to know. The amount of images I’ve seen of sardines tucked into each other in the tin, nestled into each other’s would-be collar bones. The curated photos of them straight from the tin atop a piece of fluffy bread, perhaps a sprinkle of dill, a shredding of fennel; I was envious of the eater’s enjoyment. But it was this mere bite that halted the operation altogether. A nibble, a gag, a spit it out in the trash: this was horrible. As opposed to the other ones, I could not understand how on earth one could willingly put a whole fillet of this on a piece of bread and call it lunch. I gave it to the dogs.