Tinned food

On Sunday I listened to “The Food Programme” on Radio4. The topic under discussion was the British attitude to tinned foods. The conclusion seemed to be that we were on the whole rather sniffy about tinned food, regarding it as somehow substandard, something to be kept in the cupboard for emergencies.

It is easy to see how the latter concept took hold. Tinning of food was a technique discovered during the Napoleonic wars. An army moves on it stomach & tinned food made the transportation easier as well as making time between gathering & eating less crucial. In days before refrigeration & freezing, tins were a good way of preserving in order to give time for food to be moved possibly from one country to another.

These days, however, we have far better means of transporting fresh foods & keeping them fresh. The advent of planes & faster ships has speeded up the importation of foods from far flung parts of the world. Freezers have enabled some frozen foods to be almost fresher than fresh foods e.g. peas are frozen within an hour of picking whereas it takes a day or two for them to get into the shops.

I then found myself thinking about my own attitude to tinned foods. I suppose I must admit my childhood home always had tinned fruit e.g. peaches, pineapple, pears, fruit cocktail, apricots, prunes, mandarins, in. We also had tinned sardines for snacks & tinned salmon, even crab occasionally, as a treat with salad.

The Fox’s mother loved tinned veg. At first I used them too but as my culinary skills developed I tended to move more to fresh or frozen veg. I find tinned carrots just too soft. Give me Vichy carrots any day.

However, I always have some tinned food in. I would feel bereft without them. Rarely a week goes by without us buying some tins.

I had a little think about what tins we’ve opened this week. Last Friday, we dined out but we did have tinned sardines on toast as a snack. Saturday saw us having Corned Beef Hamburgers – corned beef & accompanying tomatoes, both from tins. Sunday was Kipper & Egg Kedgeree – tinned kippers & accompanying tomatoes. Yesterday we Tomato & Chorizo Soup with tinned chickpeas in it. Today the Fox is making Cheese Pasta Medley, with, you guessed it, tinned tomatoes.

I would regard our cupboards as bare without some baked beans, tinned tomatoes & kidney beans in. As for fish there has to be sardines, kippers, tuna & salmon, possibly crab also. And for meat there has to be at least one tin of corned beef. Generally I prefer tinned soups, so much better value than fresh, less hassle & often better results. It is a matter of some regret to me that the range of condensed soups seem to have been reduced in recent years. I love using them as a basis for a sauce. Fish fillets baked in condensed mushroom soup delicious. Or tomato soup with fishcakes. Chicken soup in vol-au-vents or pies. Asparagus or celery soup in flans. Oxtail soup in popovers.

When self-catering in France, we just have to buy some Confit de Canard. It’s just so wonderful. So French.

I remain a fan of tinned food. Long may they continue.