In praise of tinned food.

I get hooked on the most trivial articles. A recent one I read concerned tinned food and how some iconic chefs swear by it. In winter Raymond Blanc is happy to use tinned pears, other chefs tinned cherries in Clafoutis and tarts. When it comes to tinned beans, I like them cold from the tin but love them hot and unadorned on homemade granary bread toast which has been smothered in virgin olive oil, the whole topped of with a generous sprinkle of black pepper. But then, I’m no longer a chef. 

Others are far more ambitious with baked beans,  mixing them with chilli paste and dolloping them on baked potato – or Tortilla topped with diced avocado, finely chopped chilli, a squeeze of lime juice and some crumbled feta cheese. Beans for goodness sake!

But then I got hooked onto the comments that followed and went down the rabbit hole. 

Apparently, you can make a neat Sicilian pasta dish made from tinned sardines, chopped cherry tomatoes and a dollop of puree, crushed garlic, capers, pine-nuts, and a pinch of chilli flakes.

I read on eagerly . . . tinned mackerel  fishcakes . . . smashed butter beans or any white bean with rosemary and garlic instead of boring old mashed potato. 

Another boldly claimed that tinned salmon was far superior to fresh. Many agreed that little could beat tinned peaches with tinned evaporated milk.

Back to tinned sardines:  fry breadcrumbs and garlic; add the sardines,* parsley and lemon and add to pasta. (*alternatively, tinned anchovies)

Or might you be tempted by corned beef hash patties fried in butter and served with mayo and pickle? And are Farrows’ tinned marrowfat peas really tastier than frozen?

Then the comments moved on to tinned soup—Campbell’s condensed soups in particular. 

One writer averred that nothing could beat fried sausages topped with Campbells’ concentrated vegetable soup. Another disagreed, arguing the virtues of Campbell’s mushroom soup instead. Both agreed the soup should remain undiluted. 

Or would you fancy a drop of Crab Bisque? — equally easy to make using Campbell’s condensed cream of chicken soup, and equal quantity of milk, butter, tin of shredded crab and sweet Hungarian paprika.

Canned Pilchards anyone?  They’re apparently big in Italy—often put into a pasta sauce with—as another reader claims—dry fennel seeds, tinned tomatoes and tinned olives.

Evaporated milk is supposedly great in coffee, even better on breakfast cereal, though an aunt of ours preferred Bailey’s Irish Cream on her cereal and lived until she was ninety-eight.  She may though have lived even longer had she gone for a tin of evaporated milk which contains a healthy amount of Vitamin D.

By this time readers were in rhapsody, as was I, all of them bemoaning the demise of the well-stocked pantry bursting with colourful tins. It prompted me to wander off to the cupboard we call a pantry for a tin of sild and two rounds of toast.