These cans are awesome. I had a house full of sardines when I saw them but I bought them anyway. Why not? I’ve had much better sardines than these, but no others whose empty cans I want to scrub clean of sea scum and fish fragrance until my fingers go pruney and I’m bleeding out of aluminum splinters. (This procedure comes after a lazy three days of suds-soaking.)
Cans aside for a moment, you should eat sardines, whether or not they've fallen prey to marketing genius. They’re loaded with Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, calcium, vitamin B-12, protein, and, according to less reliable sources, Coenzyme Q10. I won’t health-spam you here (or anywhere), but the internet says these things are good. And you should want more of them. Herring are a similarly smart (and delicious) option, but I haven’t found any mind-blowing herring packaging yet, so knickknack-wise they're useless.
Let’s talk sardine cans again. What do we think of when we think of sardines? I know I can't get that damn frightening spine out of my head no matter how many I've massacred. I do a miserable job of pulling them off the fish meat, and I cringe every time I do it. (But oh the rare excitement when a vertebrae string slides off in one piece!) Point being, they're obnoxious and creepy, and smelly too. Corpses in a mini-coffin. Ew. But this packaging plays with that very idea, with those tiny little fish in cute little colors that seem to be swimming endlessly in circles around the wavy can. They look alive. And pretty. And voila, you've forgotten about the cadavers that await inside. Each flavor is color-coded and there’s even an illustrated icon, for the stubborn illiterate in all of us. Who wants to read all-uppercase type when you can just read the picture? And yet, the can’s so charming, you might very well want to read the entire thing like it's page six. Oh, the irony.
I have come across boneless sardines, which are infinitely superior to the bone-infested ones, both in taste and in manual labor required. I’m obviously too lazy to cook if I’m eating sardines in the first place. Nevertheless, I really ought to give these fancy ones another try, because my memory's foggy and I can’t rank them properly among other brands. (And rankings sell, baby.) At this point, though, they've been sitting pretty on my kitchen counter for so long that even if they’re technically years away from expiry, I’m going to feel a little fishy about eating them now. I think it's time to buy another round.
Before I sign off I want to give a quick nod to this pizza sauce can, because it’s equally deserving of a few head turns, and a smile. I had zero interest in using the sauce but purchased it anyway, apparently still stuck in a mood to spend.
So? To the package designers of BELA-Olhão Portuguese sardines, cheers. Thanks for giving my kitchen color. In fact, all the better that your product is sub par; that way the few that I have can rest unopened ad infinitum, and I can stop soaking. To Don Pepino, arrivederci. May you continue to smile that primary retro smile until your sauce goes rancid.
1 comment:
If you've ever wondered by new Nike sneakers smell faintly of salty fish, it's because they're assembled by the same kids who debone your expensive, superior sardines. True story.
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