Mackerel,its whats for dinner

[haha]

When I was a boy I carried a can or two of sardines in my WW2 surplus rucksack when I went in the woods. Later, when I was married, my wife was a sublime cook, and mostly she was home so I had magnificent meals, and so I ate little canned fish.

I love to eat, but I never had much interest in cooking and I have even less now. A few times in late spring I will buy some of the magnificent fresh halibut that shows up particularly in a Japanese market in our International District. But it is very expensive. Soon fresh salmon will be around for a while, and I am especially fond of sockeye, again from the Japanese market in the ID.

But my daily driver is becoming canned fish. I eat more of this than anything else. It is fairly cheap. (For what it is, but it is expensive compared to a diet with a lot of starch. Overall about $500/mo for everything including veggie,etc) I can eat it all year, and order it online if I want to.

Supposedly too much fish is a bad plan because of mercury, but much of canned fish is low in mercury. (Not tuna, but other smaller fish which mostly are eaten by fish rather than eat other fish). So far I have sampled various high quality sardines, mackerel, and a really good brand of sockeye salmon, Rubenstein's. Salmon probably carry more mercury than sardines etc, but their habit of making suicide runs up the rivers should control that a bit. I'd say that now maybe 1/2 or a bit more of my protein is canned fish. One huge plus is I really don't need to do much else to make a meal. I keep a perpetual cucumber, onion and vinegar salad going, and usually that plus canned fish is all I need for the first meal. Maybe for dinner I substitute some broccoli or cauliflower or a bag of Trader Joe's spinach for the cucumber salad, and perhaps fresh fish or ground meat or lamb chops for the fish if I feel ambitious. I think this diet may improve my health, but even if it does not I think I'll stick with it. It's fairly good and very easy, so as long as I can handle the cans as I age I should be golden. There are even electric can openers so maybe this will never be an issue.

There is quite a bit of information about this way of eating on the web. It seems to appeal to old men.

Ha

[MarieIG]

What brand of sardines do you eat? And are they in water, olive oil, tomato sauce or something else?

I, um, like sardines. A lot.

[Beststash]

Funny - I like mackerel myself. The DW hates sardines, mackerel, and even anchovies....we ordered pizza once and asked they only put anchovies on half....that didn't work Glad to hear someone else likes oily fish!

[NW-Bound]

We bought and ate a few cans of sardines in the recent road trip through Spain and Portugal.

Not a connoisseur, but we both thought they were better than what we generally got in the US, which were canned in various places (we avoid cans marked Made in China). The European canned sardines did not taste or smell fishy.

[RobbieB]

I've been a fan of sardines and hardtack since I was a kid. Pops and I enjoyed them often while Ma hid.

Lately I've switched to kippered herring. Bigger can, smoked fish.

No Mackerel por favor, a little too strong for me. My cat loved it though, her fav!

[sheldon cornped]

Love, love, love those sardines, actually most any canned fish. The last US canned sardine factory closed down several years ago so you will only find Canadian, Polish, Chinese, Thai etc... The ones Costco sells are from Portugal and are skinless and boneless and in oil. They are pretty good however. My favorite used to be Port Clyde. You can still find them on sale for about $1 a can. Nutritious, high protein, low fat. Just don't OD on them like anything else. And fresh anchovies where found are not salty or as oily but are delicious.

[FIREd]

I like canned sardines with a warm potato salad. I buy boneless skinless sardines from Portugal (packed in olive oil). I only find my favorite brand across the border, in Swiss grocery stores, and it isn't cheap (over $3 for 4 filets). On my side of the border, I find cheaper boneless skinless sardines from Morocco but they are not as tasty.

[Alan]

I love canned fish and we eat it once a week, peppered mackerel and kippers in olive oil are my favorite. We have a street market every Thursday with fish straight off that day’s boats. We buy enough for a week, freezing what we don’t eat that day. Yesterday we kept out some halibut and had it for dinner.

The market is also on Saturday but the “fish man” only comes on Thursdays.

[nativenewenglander]

My wife loves Port Clyde sardines in hot sauce. I love to make pizza with anchovies, but I need to make another type for my wife as the anchovy oil ran onto her half when I made the first his and hers pizza, it became mainly a his pizza. I love canned mackerel, but would like to try fresh if I ever saw it in the market. We live way north in NH, so shopping around here for any specialties can be challenging. Ah, but catching fresh brook or rainbow trout is easy.

[Dtail]

DGF eats sardines packed in extra virgin olive oil on a regular basis. Perhaps I will get back into it.
Overall, we eat fish 3x weekly.

[flintnational]

When we were first married, DW liked sardines. Neither of us eat them now. But, we eat a lot of canned fish. Costco use to carry canned sockeye salmon but has not had it for about a year. We are eating Costco canned pink salmon. We make a batch of salmon salad at the beginning of the week and put it on a veggie salad most days for lunch. We are also avoiding tuna because of the concerns about mercury. We had some Spanish anchovies in a tapas bar in Asheville a couple of months ago. They were fantastic. I may try and buy some online. When I have fresh caught Spanish mackerel, I smoke it on the BGE and make a smoked fish dip.

[zinger1457]

Back in my younger days use to go on a lot of deep sea one day fishing trips. The mackerel we caught usually went into the bait bucket, there's probably a way to prepare it to make it palatable but none of us took the time to figure it out.

[COZICAN]

King Oscar are the best sardines around here. They have a Mediterranean style that I really like. My office mates......not so much.

[Koogie]

I love sardines. A toasted sardine sandwich with canned sardines, pepper and some vinegar on it was a staple of my childhood.

We have a Portuguese winery up here that does smoked Portuguese style large sardines on the bbq. That paired with a salad and some vinho verde is fantastic.

I like mackerel the best as sashimi. Great flavor and texture.

[tuckeverlasting]

I also am a canned fish fan! I enjoy a variety of types but the canned mackerel from Trader Joe's is especially tasty. Also, not canned, but the steelhead trout is often on sale at Fred Meyer and QFC. I like it even better than salmon.

[braumeister]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zinger1457 Back in my younger days use to go on a lot of deep sea one day fishing trips. The mackerel we caught usually went into the bait bucket, there's probably a way to prepare it to make it palatable but none of us took the time to figure it out.

Same here. Went as often as I could afford to.

Mackerel is an oily fish (like my favorite, bluefish), so I think it's best baked.

I've also had mackerel sashimi at a good sushi bar and it was excellent.

[haha]

I am surprised and glad to see how many people are canned fish fans! I eat various brands. I always check to see that they are packed in either olive oil, or water. The other oil packs taste ok, but I am not too sure of the health status. The Portuguese ones usually have bigger fish as compared to King Oscars. One brand I eat often is Matiz España. Cheaper but good (I think not everone agrees with this opinion) are Trader Joe's lightly smoked sardines in olive oil. King Oscar are good for sure. Buying a dozen or more cans from Amazon or Walmart often can save a fair amount of money.

Recently I branched out and bought canned cod livers. Let me tell you, these definitely can be addictive. Very mild. I think one would not need any vitamin pills eating these! I prefer to have them with vodka straight out of the freezer, so these are a special evening treat since I still manage to keep vodka out of my daily life.

Years ago we lived on the coast and went fishing frequently. Often we had a big part of our catch canned.

Ha

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobbieB I've been a fan of sardines and hardtack since I was a kid. Pops and I enjoyed them often while Ma hid. Lately I've switched to kippered herring. Bigger can, smoked fish. No Mackerel por favor, a little too strong for me. My cat loved it though, her fav!

I have always loved canned tuna and sardines, but these are the only canned fish that we eat, besides the little bit of anchovy I occasionally use for cooking.

Have never tried canned mackerel. Don't know why, but perhaps it's because I fear it would be more fishy than my tolerance.

In the recent trip through Portugal, we ate quite a bit of grilled fish in restaurants. Even my wife who is no fan of fish agreed that the fish was excellent. Few things are better than a good fresh fish simply grilled on charcoal.

[bjorn2bwild]

I do not care for fish of any kind, yet eat it twice weekly as a dietary supplement.
The canned source is most convenient to use and in order of preference - sardines, salmon, herring + clams and oysters as an excellent food source for vitamin B-12 along with the omega 3 fatty acids.
A good strong acid such as lemon juice greatly improves palatability.

[pacergal]

I eat canned tuna or salmon. My DF loved any canned fish. I used to enjoy going to various world markets and finding him as many different varieities as I could. He loved them all and was always thrilled when I found something he hadn't tried yet. He's been gone 4 years, Thanks for the memories!