Tinned treasures

Preserved to Perfection

Tinned food kind of got itself a bad rep back in the days when Spam, corned beef and luncheon meat, tinned peas and sardines where popular on supermarket and shop shelves, but they weren’t necessarily that good a quality and would have been a hangover from war time rationing.

I was always fascinated by my Gran’s larder which was full of all sorts of canned stuff, most of which may well have been there from post war! Sardines in tomato sauce was a popular one in many households and my Gran would occasionally dish them up on toast. Thankfully, she never served up canned vegetables except for the occasional can of butter beans with a stew, or I remember a tin or two of Marks and Spencer’s Chicken Supreme, which wasn’t that bad from memory.

There are some great products out there but maybe we haven’t taken a leaf out of other European countries’ books and upped our game a bit on the canning front. We should be borrowing their methods of preserving and using better liquids and oils in the process. On our Tonnix on Tour trip to Quinta de la Rosa last year we had a little stop off in Porto and ordered canned sardines. They are a tourist attraction in some of the shops - I saw some with a Ferris wheel in the middle of the shop with cans of sardines rotating, which is quite bizarre. I’m a bit of a hoarder and collector, so I did pick up several beautiful tins in shops but then resisted the temptation any further, as I knew very well that this would become another addiction, and I would need canning therapy!

Years ago, I remember visiting a factory in Italy - the cans of anchovies would be lined with a kind of enamel rather than the plastic which is typically used here. At the famous fish canning factories in Spain, I saw that the seafood wasn’t boiled to death before going in the tin – indeed some of it, like the smoked anchovies, was cured and preserved in oil so that the tins have a short shelf life and need refrigerating.

My good friend Mitch Tonks, and Tonnix on Tour partner, has certainly raised the bar for UK fish canning and has a great range of Rockfish tinned fish which stem from local West Country waters. He then sends the locally caught fish to Asturias to be canned by artisan canners El Viejo el Pescador. The range is fantastic - do check them out. You can buy them in the Rockfish restaurants or online for home delivery.

You can buy these online or in various smart shops and independent delis. Tins come in handy when it comes to menu planning so take a bit of inspiration from your larder and make them the main ingredients.

Mitch and I recently did a dinner at our friends Dart’s Farm in Devon. We called the evening Tonnix Tinned and Smoked and cooked 9 courses of inspiring dishes with Rockfish tinned seafood and my Hix Smokin’ House fish washed down with Tonnix wine from Quinta de la Rosa.

We were also joined by Sophia Bergqvist, owner of the vineyard, to add to the fun of the event. What a team, and what an evening!