Okay, as a sardine fan, I’ll give you my two cents:
I currently have three cans (packed in soybean oil) in my pantry. Each can is 4.25 ounces, and is considered one serving (about four fish per can). Here are the stats on them:
Calories: 210. Calories from Fat: 120
(all following percentages based on a 2000 calorie diet)
Total fat: 13g/21%
Saturated Fat: 3.5g/17%
Trans Fat: 0g/0%
Cholesterol: 35mg/11%
Sodium: 210mg/9%
Total Carbohytrates: 0g/0%
Dietary Fiber: 0g/0%
Sugars: 0g/0%
Protein: 23g/46%
(No following mass measurements given)
Vitamin A: 0%
Vitamin C: 0%
Calcium: 50%
Iron: 15%
I miss the really small sardines, I’ll admit. I can’t seem to find them anymore. I can only get the 4-to-a-can ones now. But, still…they are really good for you (especially if you are low-carb dieting).
I don’t care for the grit that the larger sardines produce as a result of their larger spinal columns. I know they are more calcium, but I (like others) prefer thusly to mash them up and eat them on toast or saltines to disguise the crunchy bone stuff. I, too, mash up the ones in mustard sauce into a spread and put it on crackers, which is one of my favorite snacks. It perplexes people who would be totally disgusted if they knew what they were eating.
Sardines are awesome; but I’ll admit, I’ve never had them from anywhere than a can.
Not quite correct. While Sardine as a term does include a number of small fish, and cans of sardine CAN include certain types of herring instead, and in SOME regions of the world Sardine can mean herring, in general, herring are not sardines, and sardines are not inherently “young” anything.
Sardines are not significantly more expensive than other canned meats. Canned breast chicken, for example, is more expensive. Tuna (by which we really mean albacore) is less expensive, but has certain health risks associated with it (not to mention the issue of dolphins in nets, etc.).
I like sardines in oil. I especially love them when they have been deboned. But I also like other canned fish, especially cans of “golden smoked” trout. Yum.
Oh, Sardines along the Pacific coast were fished almost to extinction. The canneries died as a result; one now houses the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Just broke open a tin of Beach Cliff sardines in Louisiana Hot Sauce. They are large, but dang tasty on crackers with a little hot chow-chow on the side. $.79/tin.
Sardines are a snack that I like, but won’t go out of my way to get. They’ve always seemed a bit bland to me, and the sauce in the ones with sauce tends to taste a little funny. (Not funny enough for me to stop getting them though. But usually I just get the ones in oil.) After reading this thread over a month ago, I stocked up. I got some smoked oysters and kippers too, since I like them and they’re in the same section. I can’t find the mythical 70¢ sardines though. They’re a buck and a half on sale, and over $2 regularly.
There’s a market near the office. They have a nice assortment of fish. The Roland smoked octopus is wonderful. A few weeks ago I picked up a tin of Latvian Riga Gold Smoked Sprats. I’ve just eaten it. Oh, man. These guys are so much better than the Bumble Bee non-smoked sardines they have at the supermarket! The store is very pricy though. I think I’ll be ordering from the link, as they’re about 1/3 the price.
I keep cans of sardines in my office. My favorite fast food. Much healthier than when I kept Little Debbie junk food in my desk.
I’d be interested in hearing what brands of canned sardines dopers are eating. I’m getting a little tired of the brand I’ve been eating for the last few years.
If I showed my parents that video they would try to climb into that tank and pull some out.
Pacific Mackerel and Pacific Sardine are a big part of goan diet. We usually eat them in a very spicy curry called a “sukhe” and panfried with different spices like kokum and teppla (I think related to Sichuan peppercorn). Pacific Sardine has to be one of my favourite fish, if not my favourite.
If you are adventurous you can try Aayi’s Recipes which is probably the best known konkani food blog on the net.
We still have to buy ours frozen at the Chinatown markets. But my parents claim you can get them fresh in Hawaii.
After trying SPAM musubi for the first time, and after a bit of a delay, I found my copy of Hawai’i’s SPAM Cookbook, which I picked up at Hilo Hattie’s a few years ago. It contains the following sardine recipes:
[ul][li]Sardines and Eggs[/li][li]Lomi Sardines[/li][li]Sardine Buns[/li][li]Sardine Spread[/li][li]Sardines and Onions[/li][li]Sardines with Somen[/li][li]Filipino Style Sardines and Long Rice[/li][li]Tomato Sardine Salad[/li][li]Sardine Salad[/li][li]Sardine-Okara Patties[/li][li]Sardines and Tofu[/li][li]Sardine and Tofu Soufflé[/li][li]Mabel’s Kim Chee Sardines[/li][li]Sardine and Warabi (Fern Shoots)[/li][li]Sardines and Eggplant[/li][li]Sardine-Miso Udon[/li][li]Sardine Ozoni[/ul][/li]
I’ve just had a tin of King Oscar sardines in fish oil. I had them on Club crackers, on cracker with Tabasco, and right off the fork. IMO the crackers overpowered the fish. Tabasco added a nice flavour, but again the cracker attenuated the fish. I ended up eating half a dozen (including the last four) sardines without adulteration.
Regarding the departure of California sardines, here is the second paragraph of Sweet Thursday, the sequel to Cannery Row:
“The canneries themselves fought the war by getting the limit taken off fish and catching them all. It was done for patriotic reasons, but that didn’t bring the fish back. As with the oysters in Alice, “They’d eaten every one.” It was the same noble impulse that stripped the forests of the West and right now is pumping water out of California’s earth faster than it can rain back in. When the desert comes, people will be sad; just as Cannery Row was sad when all the pilchards were caught and canned and eaten. . . .”
Anu-La, can you share your Mom’s recipe for Goan Fish(Mackerel) Curry? I would love to try it. I’ve seen some versions online and it seems like a very fresh and distinctive curry… I’d love a recipe. The best sardines I ever had were fat, perch sized sardines in Greece. Really simply done… lightly floured and pan fried in Greek EVOO. Very simple.
Canned Sardines are cooked… they are actually cooked at a rather high temperature in the canning process and need no actual cooking or warming. As a matter of fact, hot canned sardines sound repugnant to me… its only redeeming quality is that it would make a great bandname.
However, Fresh sardines are a whole nother can of tuna, they are best fried… sure, you could eat them raw…but they taste best lightly breaded and fried in Olive Oil, Northern Mediterranean style.
And even those are better at room temperature. To me sardines are best eaten at room temperature… not hot.
I worked for Connors Bros. for 7 years. Any sardines with these labels/names on them all come from the same plant, have the same sauces, and are packed, checked, cooked, boxed, and shipped by the same people:
Brunswick
Beach Cliff (proudly made in the USA?? I think there’s a plant down there, but we cut the heads and tails off of their product and sauced 'em along with the rest of them, too)
Port Clyde
Port Side
Millionaires
King Oscar
No Frills
No Name
General
Bumblebee
Clover Leaf
Bompreco
…and probably countless others I’m not remembering anymore. My parents still work there. And my brother. And uncles, aunts, cousins, schoolmates, enemies, superiors, inferiors… my grandparents are all retired from there now, though.
I have nothing to add about nutrition or taste. I hate them all. But just find whatever brand is cheapest - the sauces are all exactly the same. I used to haul the bags around. I used to pile the boxes. I used to cull the cans.
