Another aisle, same joke
Last week I stood in front of a row of imported sardine tins, the pretty ones that cost enough to make people pause, and I laughed.
Not because they were expensive.
Because we are still acting like tinned fish just arrived.
Every few months somebody rediscovers it, gives it a better font, a nicer box, and a little lifestyle shine, as if the can itself is new. As if people have not been pulling good food from tins for years without asking permission from a trend forecast.
That part always makes me smile.
The so-called comeback is only a comeback if your pantry never knew what it was doing in the first place.
Some of us were already there
My Cuban father always kept tinned salchichas in the pantry.
My other half will open a tin of anchovies and eat them straight without apology.
And me, I have never needed a lot of convincing that food in a tin can still be good food.
I have seen too much flavor come out of too many humble places to be impressed by packaging alone.
That is probably why I have never understood the instinct to look down on preserved fish and then turn around and praise the same thing once the label gets pretty enough.
What anchovies know
When I had my restaurant, we used real anchovies in our Caesar dressing.
Not anchovy-adjacent.
Not some polite version of the idea.
Real anchovies.
And the people who swore they hated anchovies were always the most interesting to watch. They would take a bite, stop, and ask what made the dressing so good. They wanted to know what gave it that depth, that salt, that savory edge that made the whole thing feel more alive.
Then I would tell them.
And they would look shocked for about three seconds before taking another bite.
That is the thing people get wrong about tinned fish.
Done right, it is not loud for the sake of being loud. It is not fishy in the lazy, punishing way people fear. It is savory. Briny. rich in the right places. It knows how to disappear into a dish and still leave the whole thing better than it found it.
Anchovies have been doing that for years while people kept pretending they were the problem.
Conservas were never apology food
In Spain, conservas were never treated like second-best.
They are part of a real food culture. Sardines, anchovies, tuna, mussels, cockles, squid, octopus — preserved carefully in oil, brine, or sauce and served with the kind of respect people usually reserve for fresher-looking things. Spanish food sources still describe canned seafood as a household staple and a delicacy, not a compromise.
That matters.
Because this is where Americans sometimes tell on themselves a little. We see a tin and assume thrift before craft. We assume pantry before pleasure. Then we fly to Europe, or walk into a specialty store, and suddenly the same idea becomes sophisticated because somebody stacked the tins next to good olives and better lighting.
I am not making fun of the pretty tins. I like a beautiful package as much as anybody.
I just do not confuse the package with the lesson.
The food still has to earn it
A pretty label cannot save bad fish.
A trend cannot save bad fish either.
What makes tinned fish worth defending is what always made it worth defending: when it is good, it is good. It is useful. It is shelf-stable in the least depressing way. It can turn toast into dinner, pasta into something deeper, a salad into something with backbone.
And yes, fish brings real nutritional value with it too. FDA guidance still points to fish as a source of protein and nutrients including omega-3 fats, vitamin B12, vitamin D, and selenium.
But that is not even the main reason I keep standing up for it.
I stand up for it because I am tired of watching people dismiss foods that have quietly worked for generations, only to welcome them back once marketing catches up.
What I’ll always stand behind
So no, I do not need tinned fish to be rebranded for me.
I do not need it turned into a board, a tower, or a moment.
Give me good anchovies in a dressing. Give me sardines with bread. Give me a pantry that knows how to feed people without making a speech first.
That is the part I trust.
Not the comeback.
Not the aesthetic.
The usefulness. The depth. The fact that some of the best ingredients in a kitchen do not need to look glamorous to do their job.
And maybe that is why I will always stand behind tinned fish.
Not because it is trendy enough to come back.
Because it never needed to.
Chef Alexis Hernandez writes The Other Side of the Stove. His work has also appeared in News of Sun City Center, and he has appeared on Food Network Star and Cutthroat Kitchen.
