Lisbon is the best place in the world for tinned fish?
We have lots of Lisbon's tinned food in our kitchen.
It’s delicious straight from the tin, it’s good to have when you need a snack or a starter for unexpected visitors. And the cans’ colorful wrappings look good – the reason why I sometimes just had to buy them.
So I couldn’t help laughing when I read Jeff Gordinier’s story in Esquire.
How to Make an Easy, Not-Boring Lunch With That Can of Tuna in Your Pantry.
If you had suggested to me, at the beginning of the year, that there would be serious sales potential in a weird little book full of recipes involving canned tuna, herring, and mackerel, I would have laughed and directed you to the pile of forgotten cookbooks in my basement. But now it’s the middle of March, and a lot of us are stuck in our homes.
...Such is my fondness for conservas (as they’re known on the Iberian Peninsula) that when my wife and I traveled to Portugal in 2017, I spent hours in tinned-fish shops gazing in wonder at the beautifully packaged wares. We even have a poster of Portuguese sardines hanging in our kitchen.
If you had suggested to me, at the beginning of the year, that there would be serious sales potential in a weird little book full of recipes involving canned tuna, herring, and mackerel, I would have laughed and directed you to the pile of forgotten cookbooks in my basement. But now it’s the middle of March, and a lot of us are stuck in our homes.
...Such is my fondness for conservas (as they’re known on the Iberian Peninsula) that when my wife and I traveled to Portugal in 2017, I spent hours in tinned-fish shops gazing in wonder at the beautifully packaged wares. We even have a poster of Portuguese sardines hanging in our kitchen.
We love Lisbon's tinned fish.
Our kitchen was microscopic – so we have to be creative and selective to get room for the things we need and things that are important to us. Like our collection of Tinned Fish together with my old favorite AIAIAI headset and an art memory by Sophus Ritto from his Limbo Kathmandu events in back in 2015.
Growing up in Down-Town Copenhagen and being a frequent guest with my parents in the city’s many semi-gastronomic outlets (aka Værtshuse) I have a special affection for Lisbon’s tinned delicacies.
Back then most of these places worked as cantines where workers could drink a few beers with their homemade lunch. If they didn’t have any, they could usually choose a few dishes like meatballs served with pickled cucumber salad and rye bread, soft white bread served with a few slices of cheese or sardines served in an opened can served with two slices of rye bread, a quarter of lemon and “pimped” up with a bouquet of Parsley
As a teenager we lived off sandwiches made from two loaves of bread, cans of sardines, tuna or salmon mixed with cheap mayonnaise and two loaves of bread during countless rock festivals…
When I started playing chef for friends deep fried breaded moules (from Limfjorden) became my ‘House snack’ – followed up with Salade Nicoise… with huge chunks of Tuna
Today we use all kinds of tinned fish. The tuna for one of Italian favorites: Vitello Tonnato, the sardines on toasted bread with a good olive oil. The anchovy for our Andalusian Toasts – or all kinds of fish and seafood straight from the can with a sunny tomato.
Tinned Fish is probably the best distributed product from Portugal – you get it in supermarkets and grocery stores all over the world! And most people we know have cans hidden away in cupboards, drawers, fridges and other places they have for storing food items … just in case something happens.
So now that you can’t be here in Lissabon, why not use the situation to get a taste of Portugal at home…
Thomas
The canned Sardines is a French invention. Here is how it ended up in Portugal.
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