Eight years ago, when I first started selling a publisher about my first idea. Cookbook about canned fishthis response was a diplomatically expressed repetition of “EW.” Here in America, sardines were grandpa’s food. Canned seafood was too odd and niche and wasn’t very motivated by the “book buyer audience.” One pandemic, a Times Square Sardine Storeand Many memes After that, the tide changed. Depending on who you ask, we finally live in canned fish heaven.
“When I first started working with canned fish almost ten years ago, it felt like screaming into the blank,” he admits. A lovely can Founder Charlotte Langley was also a co-founder. Scout Canning. “I thought people were thinking I was trying to romanticize what I went crazy.”
Now I’m all in fast fashion retailers Shane For luxury brands, Staud makes sardines romantic. You can buy it $1,670 Embroidered Sardine Clutch With Net-a-porterand the sports will be displayed in the Anthropologie window this season. Giant, sparkling sardine can As a background. Walking along grocery store aisles and city streets is difficult. We don’t get a grasp of the culture of canned fish. It doesn’t matter whether you can design a new Twee with mass market products or a dedicated TIN menu at a small wine bar. (In New York alone, you can order concerts at Maiden Lane, Elpingino, Bibliotech, Good Guy and Timperler.
In other words, repulsion was inevitable. Cue Tweets and Tiktok about the disappointed fish.”Recession energy. “There are simultaneous moans about the shocking $20-$50 price tag called Canned Fish from New York magazine author Tammy Tecremariam The biggest scam of 2022. 2023 Restaurant Reviewer Ryan Sutton wrote It said, “You can usually skip canned fish when eating out.” That same year, Eater writer Amy McCarthy I sought an end A trend to praise one of the world’s most “overrated” foods is, “Is this a really luxurious ingredient or does it look cool on Instagram?”
As the author of a book on this subject, I find it easy to take all of this personally. But I also sometimes feel a bittersweet twist and see once-in-a-damaged pursuits become corporate.
For me, canned fish was not meant to be something we incorporate into every meal or every outfit every day. Sometimes I see the brand trying to convince them to make canned albaco anachos and say, “I don’t want that. We’ve done this too much.” Sometimes I see a grocery store tin brand that was 100% marked on the menu, and I remembered Willie Staley’s Tweet For years, on fictional (but too transparent) Bushwick restaurant dishes: “Discard Ortiz tuna cans on a cool looking plate with plenty of cape cod chips. For $30, it’s called “Hot Girl Lunch.” ”
“The $30 Spanish concert on the restaurant menu and $30 tin has always felt for me, and I’ll say the same thing about $120 cans of caviar,” Sutton tells me. “They feel like mostly a luxury they’ve been called.”
“I don’t think restaurants are generally fluent in talking about canned fish. They are the same as talking about fish fish like they are about wine. I don’t usually leave restaurants saying, ‘Wow, I need to try that exact can again’. Sutton makes occasional exceptions at restaurants like Cart Driver in Denver. “They combine their custody with a flavor of hot sourdough piada, black olive butter and sambal peppers. You can’t make it at home!”
Even members of the Internet’s longtime canned fish community have mixed feelings about their hobby becoming platinum. Reddit user U/Mikeczyz says he started r/cannedsardines Comments from a doctor on Subreddit sent rabbit holes to learn more about food in this category and introduce it to his diet. Currently, the subreddit (he’s still a moderate) has around 117,000 members, and since I joined in 2021, the number of daily posts has increased dramatically.
“I’m not saying it’s out of hand, but some of it feels quite far from where it started. The visibility is great: it’s cool to see more access, more brands, more creativity, and converts,” he tells me. The whole aesthetic push from fish favourites in particular can sometimes feel a bit of performance. I hope that it’s mind – simple, satisfying, delicious food will be at the heart of it as it grows. ”
Matthew Carlson has become popular Sardine tasting video YouTube since 2018 has noticed some changes over the years in how his audience reacts to his videos (as it seemed like everything from a few years ago suddenly turned to soy oil), but he says, “‘trendyness’ is passing me.” His theory about why?
“My analysis shows that viewers have become 90% of men,” he says. “The mainstreaming of canned fish seems very female oriented, based on the styling of all tote bags, pillowcases and cute outfits.
surely, When I first met the founder of Fish Wife In 2021, Becca Millstein and Caroline Goldfarb stood out from their competitors as their approach to branding and marketing was particularly targeted at women. The name of the brand (nod to historic slang terminology for women in foulmouth), the logo playing (woman transporting a basket of fish to his head while smoking a pipe), and the fish claim that the canned fish are “Hot girl food.” With the arrival of the shark tank in 2023, Millstein shared that the company was making $2.6 million in 2022 and was on track. $5.8 million in 2023. Now you can find colorful cartoon-coated cans at Target, Whole Foods, Wegman, and even Costco.
“Over the past few years, I have seen a transition from surprise to curiosity,” says Meijie Liao, who creates the video. Instagram and Tiktok About fermentation techniques, unconventional ice cream flavors, and concerts. “In the beginning, people were shocked. ‘Would you eat this straight from the can?” Now it’s almost something taboo dishes collect and share. ”
“I’m not saying it’s out of control, but some of it feels quite far from where it started. ”
Still, Riao says it’s easy for all this renewed interest to lose nuance. “The craftsmanship and generational knowledge make it difficult to respect honor when traditional maintenance is grouped together with mass-produced cans wrapped in flashy branding,” she says.
“Sustainability is another drawback. With demand surges, rapid and inexpensively generated pressures can erode sourcing practices. In Galicia, legacy producers are already fully capable within their fishing quota, but feel they have lost market share as a peak of interest.
Langley agrees, calling the mainstream “both blessings and responsibility.”
“As it comes with popularity, it comes with dilution,” Langley says. “There are many trends that follow without respect for origin, culture, and processes. When something becomes “atmosphere” or aesthetics, there is a risk of losing its integrity, especially if new players do not retain roughly the same value of sustainability, transparency, or taste. ”
For Langley, who grew up immersed in Prince Edward Island’s fishing culture, the canned seafood trend can feel detached from all heritage. “When I see the trend towards reducing maintenance to “cute canned quirky little fish,” I’m worried that we’ll miss the depth and cultural weight of this food tradition. ”
This trend shows no signs of slowing down at this time.4.427 billion by 2030. A significant portion of that money goes towards the Bumble Bees and Starkists of the world.Protein Maximum“It’s most certainly related to this spike. Still, this growth is due to consumer interest (and consumer education). Sustainability of canned seafood) Overall, creating space for new start-ups in the industry, Small North American companies Like the lovely cans, canned wildfish, Island Creek oysters and the Great Lakes, canned fish meet this demand with lesser known species and small-scale fisheries.
“Retailers are finally taking canned seafood seriously,” Langley says. “Consumers recognize the cooking and nutritional value of the belly of sardines, mussels and tuna. They see it as more than just survival food.”
