No Mean Catch!

No Mean Catch!

To the great surprise of most North Americans, the humble canned sardine is a revered comestible -- and justly so -- among French gourmands. The best brands -- Rodel, La Quibéronnaise, Gonidec, and La Belle Illoise -- are from Brittany, where the sardine industry was once the backbone of the Breton economy. The sardine tin, in fact, was invented by a Breton named Pierre-Joseph Colin in 1810. The preserved fish immediately made culinary history: Napolèon had thousands loaded into carts and brought to the Russian front where the tasty little fish must have helped soften the blow of France's defeat. The best cans of sardines, usually marked premîere catégorie or extra, are treated like bottles of fine wine, carefully dated (some cans are even stamped with the name of the fishing boat credited with the catch), laid away in cellars for up to a decade and lovingly turned every few months for proper aging. Even the vocabulary for aged sardines is borrowed from oenology: one speaks of grands crus and millésimes. With the current trend toward "limited-edition" canned sardines, the oily fish has acceded to an even more exalted status. Purists take them straight, crushed onto a slice of buttered bread with the back of a fork, with perhaps the tiniest squeeze of lemon to bring out the oily flavors. Whichever way you wolf them down, vintage sardines are tender, delicately flavored, and deeply satisfying as a snack or an entire meal.