Sardines for lunch

I really like sardines. They are a recent discovery for me. And French supermarkets have almost as many varieties of canned fish (mainly sardines and mackerel) as they do yogurt. They're good right out of the can on a slice of bread. On Monday we ate canned sardines for lunch with boiled potatoes and steamed broccoli.

Three varieties of canned sardine fillets from the supermarket.

I opened two tins, one with sardines packed in olive oil and the other flavored with lemon and basil. Both were good. I added a little tabasco sauce to the plainer ones for a little additional kick. Very tasty. These were sardine fillets, but you can also get them canned whole (without heads or tails). They're just as good, but you have to take out the back bone. I'm sure there are people that just eat the bone since it's pretty soft, but I like to remove it.

When I was in Madrid in 2006, I ate one of the most memorable sandwiches I've ever had. The sandwich was simply sardines on a thick, crusty piece of bread; it was dripping with delicious olive oil and the fish was fresh and good. I tried cooking fresh sardines at home once but was not happy with the result. Canned sardines are very good and much easier.

France has a big sardine canning industry based mostly in Brittany. From what I've read, the French perfected the method of preserving sardines in cans very soon after the process for metal canning was invented. The method spread around the world and is practiced in many countries in Europe and North Africa. Unfortunately, the US sardine industry has declined, like much of US industry, with the last canning factory closing last year.

That information comes from Wikipedia, so I cannot guarantee total accuracy. To wit: Reason #159 for not relying on Wikipedia for your serious research: "Sardines were named after the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, where they once lived in abundance." Yeah, until the humans showed up and forced them into the Mediterranean Sea.