Member-only story
The Joy of Tinned Fish
And other stinky gastronomic delights
Last year, friends invited us last minute to Pinnacles National Park. We scurried around, grabbing this and that to throw in a backpack: crackers, apples, bananas, cookies, and a couple of tins of sardines.
We walked through narrow canyons and straw-colored meadows, alongside forbidding rock faces, and eventually up to a look-out comprised of massive round boulders where we plopped ourselves down, famished, and began opening our rucksacks.
Our friend passed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches out to her kids. I pulled out our bag of plain crunchy crackers and the two innocent-looking tins. I draped a dishtowel over my knees, braced my elbows to reduce the chances of flinging fish oil on anyone near, inserted my index finger into the little metal loop, and pulled, as carefully as possible. The can creaked. Oil seeped.
“Ew, what’s that?” shrieked my daughter’s friend.
One of the moms in our group raised her eyebrows, unable to disguise a look of mild disgust.
I ignored all that and began building perfect little boats of crunchy white, salted cracker topped by glistening slabs of sardine filet, olive oil dripping off the edges, to sail into our waiting mouths.
