Round here it’s sold “in sunflower oil”, “in brine” and “in natural spring water”. I think I prefer “in brine” but tbh it doesn’t taste different enough for me to care when I have it the other ways. I usually just pick the one that’s on special offer.
Oil vs. water isn’t the only factor. There’s also the issue of dark, light, and white – all of which have different flavors. In my book, white albacore in water is the best, and makes an awesome tuna salad mixed with mayo. Light in oil is second best. The dark stuff is nearly inedible to me, although my wife likes it as a sandwich topping occasionally.
Mine apparently must puke on either the t.v. remote or my keyboard. Nice.
And beware the Tuna Juice Trap: after years of making a mad dash for tuna juice,ours now gets a small portion of tuna (in oil ONLY :rolleyes: ) every day or she’ll kill us in our sleep.
I hate tuna in oil. Water only for me.
(for those keeping track, that means buying 2 different kinds of tuna - one kind for me, one for the cat.)
It comes with chili peppers over there? (drool)
Tuna in sunflower oil is the best taste-wise but I usually buy the water packed kind for my health.
I am 80 years old and when i was young tuna in oil was the only way you could get it. For many years since we have been buying it in water, but the other day I bought 2 cans in oil by accident. I drained it and made tuna fish salad with it. Now I know the difference, the tuna in oil tasted like I used to remember, a hell of a lot better.:smack
Yep. Albacore packed in water is great; but when I want a taste of childhood, it’s gotta be chunk light in oil.
Accidentally bought some tuna packed in oil recently. It was nasty. Something about the texture or taste of the oil really bothered me. So I donated the rest of the cans to the local food bank where hopefully some tuna-in-oil fan will appreciate it.
My cat also loves the tuna water. Who knew that was a thing?
I’m sure you drained it well. I have a hypothesis that some foods that were common in the '60s and '70s aren’t so common anymore, and that many of them have been replaced by ‘lite’, ‘healthy’ versions. I think that ‘older’ foods might have a more robust taste in certain cases, and people are no longer used to the robustness. (Sort of like in Methuselah’s Children where the extraterrestrials used Lazarus Long’s memories to make more delicious food on their food plants.) Tuna in oil has this ‘more robust’ flavour – some might call it ‘fishy’; which is, after all, the best part about eating fish – that people aren’t used to anymore.
Everyone! I’ve got some salmon water in a little dish, just waiting for the cats to come in. 
Wrong :). A little weirdly perhaps the older I get the less tolerant of ‘fishy’ I get. Never did care for the likes of mackerel, but even the sardines I used to enjoy as a kid now make me gag. All oily fish are pretty much verboten at this point. I’ll eat fresh(ish) halibut, mahi-mahi, lingcod, etc. - firm, clean-tasting, white-fleshed fishes. I can tolerate salmon, but don’t prefer it and would never order it at a restaurant.
In virtually every other respect my palate has expanded as I’ve aged, with that one glaring exception. Go figure.
Do supermarkets even sell tuna packed in oil anymore?! I have not been able to find it at one of mine for ages…
Mine still carries them. They also carry imported brands from Spain, Portugal, and Italy, which are much better than Bumblebee.
Just for comparison purposes, when was your distant youth? I remember tuna in natural spring water (Chicken of the Sea) since at least 1976 or 1977, as it was the only thing my mother would ever consider buying. I assume she learned that from her family, in that she was never particularly health conscious.
My distant youth is 1960 or so, and I only remember tuna in oil back then. Maybe that’s just what my mother bought.
I also remember tuna in water becoming commonplace in the 70s, when I was in elementary school. I much prefer tuna in oil–much less bland than the watery kind. My wife only buys the water-packed. On rare occasions, we get the good Italian tuna in olive oil, and that makes me very happy.
The olive oil-packed is really good as a topping, alongside onions, on homemade pizza–I first had that combo in an Italian resort town not frequented by Americans–or added to a puttanesca-style pasta sauce. I also like anchovies on pizza, mackerel sushi (saba), white anchovies in salad, sardines, and tuna tartare, so that’ll tell what kind of fish eater I am.
I worked in a tuna cannery back about 1976, and the ‘packed in water’ stuff was not really packed in what I would call water.
We had bags of dried vegetables like peas, carrots, celery, etc. that we poured into the water vat. And what went into the tuna in water was this broth. The vegetable pieces never went into the can, but it flavored the water.
Probably been changed since then, but tuna in water was really tuna in vegetable broth.