Don’t Be Afraid of Canned Fish
I’ve been eating the occasional tinned sardines since I can remember. When my mother wasn’t in the mood to cook, she’d warm up some crusty bread or a sleeve of saltines and set down some good butter, lemon wedges, and a can or two of olive oil packed sardines. Dinner. And I never complained because it was delicious.
A few months ago I was reintroduced to the vast and exciting world of tinned seafood at a bar in the LES called Maiden Lane. Buttery cod liver, sardines in various types of dressings, smoked oysters, mussels, crab etc…All from cans. I tried nearly everything on their menu. Mostly out of greed and gluttony, but also because when it involves no wait and no prep work, just a quick pop of a can, how enticing is it to just point and say “I’ll try that one”?
In America’s food culture the word “canned” is not associated with being appetizing or nutrient rich. It is associated with Chef Boyardee and Vienna Sausages. “Campbell's™ Cream of ________”. Soft fruit swimming in questionably sweet juices.
From childhood, anchovies are associated with an overly salty, strong fishy taste. Most of us are initially introduced to it as a destroyer of pizza. Instead, anchovies should be seen as a powerful fortifier of flavor to be used incognito in dressings, sauces or as toppings in the right way. Why are some of our most popular salad dressings so damn good? Anchovies. But I’d be willing to bet that if a server were to ask 100 patrons who order caesar salads if they’d like them with or without anchovies, the vast majority of people would turn their noses up and opt out. It seems like the obvious answer. And I bet if you were to ask them about their feelings towards sardines, the two fish would (as with all canned fish) get lumped together when in actuality they are worlds apart in flavor and use.
Recently, my client has made a shift in his diet after reading The New Health Rules by Frank Lipman M.D., and Danielle Claro. If I had written a book on diet, it would be similar to this one. It takes less than an hour to read, cover to cover. The syntax is simple yet extremely sincere. It is a very approachable guide to making easy changes in an effort toward leading a healthier lifestyle. No need to invest in stupid equipment or magic supplements or a $400 juicing plan. So now, instead of a diet that excludes a lot of important fats and focuses mostly on what to avoid eating, his diet is coming around to include more, restrict less, promote balance and sustainability. Sure, the book still warns against dietary no-go-zones. Sugar is labeled bluntly as poison, dairy is suggested to be consumed raw and minimized, and the authors shed light on issues with soy, wheat and mercury.
While reading this guide, I recognized that the healthiest people in my life live this way. They don’t diet or work out for hours every day. They eat things that are high in calories but also high in nutrition. They eat a little butter as long as it is from grass-fed cows. They think egg-whites-only is a counter-productive option. They learned how to make root vegetables taste good without much doctoring.They know when their stomach is full. They coincide physical exercise with socializing and fun, not browbeating discipline and self hatred. They don’t waste their time reading the labels of processed foods because they simply don’t buy processed foods nor many foods that come with labels. They eat things organically grown on trees and found in oceans and dug up from the dirt and their bodies, skin, and mental clarity reflect that. In fear of getting too preachy the bottom line is: you can eat really satisfyingly and feel really good as long as you commit to consuming whole ingredients as provided by our Earth…[needless to say] as was intended. And restrictive dieting is (for most) a stupid and a short term solution. How did this come about via sardines? Because when I made him this dish, his first bite prompted these words: Am I allowed to eat this?
Satisfying words to hear because I know that that means that what I have just made tastes so good that he doesn’t trust that it is good for his body. But of course it is. Full of omega-3s, the nutritional value in this dish benefit, amongst other things, your skin (your biggest organ), your brain (your most fragile organ) which is fueled by fat, your hair, your joints, your eyes, your heart, your blood etc. But at the same time these are as equally saddening words to hear because his brain is so trained to think that eating deliciously means compromising nutrition, and to keep his body on track he must be extreme in his restrictiveness when that is simply not the case nor the solution.
If you don’t have time to find the book and read it then ask yourself this: in terms of diet — does less really yield more?
RECIPE:
Flax crackers (flaxseed, bragg’s amino acids, lemon) – OR, crackers, bread, endive lettuce cups
Sardines popped out of a can (you way want to separate the filets and remove the crunch little spine or just be a big kid and enjoy the added texture)
Pickled vegetables (carrot, onion, sliced radish; boil apple cider vinegar, garlic cloves, fennel seeds, add vegetable to boiling liquid for 1 minute, then dump everything into a mason jar and let it sit for an hour to a year)
Green juice: juice 1 bunch cilantro, 1 bunch parsley, 4 garlic cloves, 1 celery stock, 1 peeled lemon, 1 peeled lime, 1 chunk of fennel. Add 3 T of apple cider vinegar. This yields nearly 1.5 cups. Use as dressing on salad, on fish, or drink as is. It’s addictively good. It’s also a good idea to reserve a few leaves for garnish.
Add small dollop of avocado onto your cracker, ½ sardine fillet (may want to break them up into smaller pieces), a pickled radish slice or onion or carrot or whatever your heart desires, sprinkle a few cilantro and parsley leaves around and drop spoonfuls of green-juice onto fish.
