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Outside/In

The tinned fish renaissance

Outside/In

NHPR

Society & Culture, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Nature, Science

4.71.5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sardines are in vogue. Literally. They are in Vogue magazine. They’re delicious (subjectively), good for you, and sustainable… right?  Recently, a listener called into the show asking about just that. “I've always had this sense that they're a more environmentally friendly fish, perhaps because of being low on the food chain. But I'm realizing I really have no sense of what it looks like to actually fish for sardines,” Jeannie told us. The Outside/In team got together to look beyond the sunny illustrations on the fish tins. Is there bycatch? What about emissions? Are sardines overfished? If we care about the health of the ocean, can we keep eating sardines? Featuring Jeannie Bartlett, Malin Pinsky, and Zach Koehn. To share your questions and feedback with Outside/In, call the show’s hotline and leave us a voicemail. The number is 1-844-GO-OTTER. No question is too serious or too silly. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.   SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member. Subscribe to our (free) newsletter. Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook.   LINKS If you’re interested in finding sustainable fisheries, our sources recommended checking out Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch and the Marine Stewardship Council. Sardines (specifically, Fishwife) in Vogue.  Why are tinned fishes in every boutique store, and why do all of those stores feel exactly the same? For Grub Street, Emily Sundberg reported on the digital marketplace behind the “shoppy shop.”  The documentary about the epic South African sardine run is “The Ocean’s Greatest Feast” on PBS. Zach Koehn’s paper, “The role of seafood in sustainable diets.”  Malin Pinsky’s research found that small pelagic fish (like sardines, anchovies, and herring) are just as vulnerable to population collapse as larger, slower-growing species like tuna.  Explore the designs of historical Portuguese fish tins (Hyperallergic). An animated reading of The Mousehole Cat The last sardine cannery in the United States closed in 2010. But you can explore this archive of oral histories with former workers in Maine factories (many of them women and children). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, Nate, hey Kate. Hey. Hey, Justin. So at a recent outside-in meeting, we were discussing our plans for this episode. And Kate, you actually told us about something that happened to you recently. Do you mind telling us that story? So I was having a birthday dinner with some of my friends. They were giving me very sweet and thoughtful gifts. And one of my

0:21.7

closest friends, she showed up with a bunch of individually wrapped little boxes. And I had a

0:28.8

suspicion what they were because we have a shared interest. And they were exactly what I thought

0:34.6

they were, which was a beautiful display of tinned fishes.

0:43.2

It was an amazing birthday gift, and we had basically like the fish equivalent of a charcutory board afterwards, and it was super, super yummy.

0:51.2

I have been completely in the dark with this term tinned fish. It sounds so much

0:58.3

nicer than I think what I normally think of is just like cheap sardines. Totally. I think that

1:03.7

tinned fish, which I guess is like the classy way to say fish in a can, has somehow undergone

1:09.9

some type of rebranding that it felt

1:12.5

equivalent to like if my friend had given me really nice like gourmet chocolate or flowers

1:18.4

or a bottle of wine like it's like a delicacy. So this is not like your chicken of the sea

1:23.5

bumblebee style cans. Oh totally. I think I mean I think part of the appeal is it's like a little taste of the Iberian Peninsula to put in your sad pantry, you know, all the colors and fun.

1:36.1

They're pretty.

1:36.8

They're pretty.

1:37.9

I have like not heard of this.

1:39.5

Like, honestly, is this like a TikTok thing?

1:41.8

Like, what is this like a TikTok thing? Like what is this? This feels like impossible to me that you would not

1:44.7

have heard of this, Nate, but maybe this speaks to our different niches. I don't know.

1:49.3

I also feel, yeah, I also, I think we're learning too. Like, I have not been like on Instagram.

1:53.8

Like I just started listening to Chapel Rhone. Like that, that is where I am at. I would say Chaparone and Tinfish are part of the same extended universe.

2:01.3

Yeah, I think so too.

2:02.3

Like a beautiful person getting done up, cracking open a can of stinky fish.

...

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