A friend has recently gotten into a tinned seafood kick. Really high quality product from a local place that stocks imports, not cheap tins of sardines.
Sidenote: I honestly had no idea how good this stuff could be. I knew that canned seafood was taken very seriously in certain parts of the world and I’ve long known that canned products aren’t necessarily low quality, but I’d never applied it to seafood.
Anyway. I’ve been bringing accoutrements for the fishies to our gathering. I’ve been focusing on acidic stuff like various pickled things, lemons, and hot sauces. Also thick crackers and pickles with crunch to contrast with the soft textures of the fish.
What else would go well? The types of fish vary but the flavor profiles are often pretty similar. Generally pretty strong, sometimes smokey, sometimes in tomato-ey sauces. I’m thinking of some simple crudite, but I don’t know how well raw veggies would work here.
Thus far there’s been a good bit of sardine and mackerel, as well as octopus, salmon, and tuna.
I should have also specified that these are casual snacking affairs prior to other things happening, not full meals. I don’t want anything that will require much too terribly much prep.
I’ll second capers, then, along other pickled foods, speared on long toothpicks. You can also serve the fish on slices of bread with canned red peppers (not pickled and not spicy).
R/cannedsardines is a great example of the strengths of reddit. Some make the claim that reddit is too big and that there’s no conversation or sense of community. Then, here’s a cool little (~7500 at the moment) sub that you’d need to have either gone looking for or had it pointed out to you to find. Virtually zero negativity. There are some celebrity posters but they don’t make asses of themselves. It turns out that canned seafood is produced all over the world so there’s no shortage of interesting new brands and products to be found from al corners of the Earth. It’s not overly active but there’s enough content to keep it lively. It’s a great message board focused on an interesting topic.
Reddit as a whole is a huge wodge of posters, and it can be confusing. But I agree the individual subreddits can have a wonderful sense of community - I participate in r/ostomy, and it has a wonderful sense of family going on [as opposed to r/conservatives … holy crap on a stick, what a toxic bunch]
I have had some wonderful canned salmon from a friends fishing trip, ditto tuna - I guess you would call it boutique canneries? I can remember having tinned fish bits [spanish tuna another buddy brought that he mail ordered and the aforesaid salmon specifically] on wasa crisp breads - thin layer of homemade cream cheese mixed with dill with flakes of salmon laid on top sort of like one would do with smoked salmon, and the tuna flakes toothpicked with a dip of caper in creme fraiche all with lemon wedges on the side for added acid. I could see a lovely ‘charcuiterie’ board set out with a couple dips [the creme fraiche and caper, a ginger/sesame soy and a creme fraiche and horseradish one] sliced bell peppers, cucumbers, radishes, wasa crisp breads, toast fingers, chopped egg [think of how caviar can get presented]