Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Sardines
We have been eating Portuguese sardines in sunflower oil (with the omega 3 option) from Sainsbury's for some time. The usual drill is to mash them up with some full strength salad cream from Heinz and serve them for breakfast on wholemeal bread without butter. For some reason it never occurs to me to toast them, despite sardines on toast having been the late night snack of choice during my days in Passfield Hall.
Came a cropper this morning though. Started to mash them up and was surprised by the heavy going. Was this just because the mashing bowl was a touch on the small side? Soldiered on and the resulting mash eventually found its way onto the wholemeal bread and from there into the oral cavity, also known as the mouth. Where it was found to contain all kinds of crunchy bits, which on inspection appeared to be vertebrae. All most off-putting, it being understood that sardines are eaten with their bones and skin but also that said bones and skin mash up with the flesh and are not separately identifiable at the point of consumption. Certainly not crunchy.
Most of this tin now in the compost dust bin. I don't suppose that the red worms are as picky about such things as I am.
But what has happened, after all the years of satisfactory supply? Have Sainsbury's driven the prices they pay the fishermen down so low that these last are resorting to cutting the sardines with some other kind of fish? A very bony sort of other fish?
PS: I note in passing that Passfield Hall has become very entrepreneurial since I was there, with a web site offering B&B during the holidays. Complete with a health warning that there may still be some smelly students in residence.
Came a cropper this morning though. Started to mash them up and was surprised by the heavy going. Was this just because the mashing bowl was a touch on the small side? Soldiered on and the resulting mash eventually found its way onto the wholemeal bread and from there into the oral cavity, also known as the mouth. Where it was found to contain all kinds of crunchy bits, which on inspection appeared to be vertebrae. All most off-putting, it being understood that sardines are eaten with their bones and skin but also that said bones and skin mash up with the flesh and are not separately identifiable at the point of consumption. Certainly not crunchy.
Most of this tin now in the compost dust bin. I don't suppose that the red worms are as picky about such things as I am.
But what has happened, after all the years of satisfactory supply? Have Sainsbury's driven the prices they pay the fishermen down so low that these last are resorting to cutting the sardines with some other kind of fish? A very bony sort of other fish?
PS: I note in passing that Passfield Hall has become very entrepreneurial since I was there, with a web site offering B&B during the holidays. Complete with a health warning that there may still be some smelly students in residence.
# posted by Jim @ 1:40 AM 
