Tins (or cans)

ELIZABETH DAVID VERSUS ROBERT CARRIER AND DELIA TOO

It's a lucky dip that I nearly cheated on and changed, but then pulled myself together, returned to what I had chosen and find I have two potentially interesting topics to talk about.

My lucky dip turned up The Robert Carrier Cookbook, a favourite of mine as you must all know by now, but I opened it at a page with a lengthy article entitled Clams - which I never eat, which is why I nearly turned to another page. Indeed I did, but changed my mind. I will come back to the clams - maybe tomorrow, but it turns out the first part of the article was all about canned food, and so I decided to make this my topic for today.

The book was given to me by David way back in 1969 (first published 1965), at a time when I was still learning how to cook properly really. In one of his two early books (it must be the other one as I can't find it in this) he talks about emergency supplies that can help to make a meal for unexpected guests. It was very useful. Elizabeth David refers to them in capitals - Unexpected Guests - and maintains that if one has a properly stocked kitchen there is no need for emergency supplies of the preserved variety. I have put Elizabeth David's name first in the 'versus' statement because, as always, she is the more belligerent and purist.

In an article she wrote for The Spectator in 1960 she says:

"It isn't only the expense, the monotony and the false tastes of the food inside most tins and jars and packages which turn me every day more against them. The amount of space they take up, the clutter they make and the performance of opening the things also seem to me quite unnecessarily exasperating... What happens when you have to open four tins, two jars and three packets in order to make one hasty cook-up is that you get a thoroughly unsatisfactory meal; and the contents of half-used tins and jars have got to be dealt with next day - or left to moulder in the fridge." (Next day? Doesn't she clean up on the day?)

(I think I might agree on the opening part - and this I must say has got much worse. Sometimes you need a degree in engineering to get into them these days.) But she does exaggerate rather and she is a bit of a food snob.

Robert Carrier, on the other hand is a bit of a fan of tins and things (I'm only dealing with tins today - not jars and packets), but he tends to use just one thing to add something to what he is doing. He also believes that some tinned foods are a unique food in their own right. And I'm going to quote him at length here, this being my lucky dip page.

"Most French cooks disapprove of canned food. Tongues in glass, canned truffles they allow as standbys, but canned food to them is no substitute for the real thing.

Admittedly, many canned foods are still a poor substitute for fresh foods. But others have been so altered in the canning process that they have become new varieties, new species almost, in their own right. It is time to take a look at some of these positive successes: canned pears, for instance, bear so little resemblance to the tree-grown variety that another fruit has been added to our larder. Canned tomato juice and Italian peeled tomatoes and tomato concentrate are another case in point. How many delicious Italian dishes would be denied us without their invaluable assistance. And baked beans have been transmuted into a new dish, a new taste that would take the ordinary housewife days of effort to counterfeit.

Some canned foods bring us the real taste of foods that are impossible to get in Britain. Ask for pineapple juice on the islands of Hawaii, which are almost sinking under the weight of their pineapple crops, and immediately a can will be opened. No attempt is made to crush fresh for you the ever present pineapple. The canned juice is exactly what a fresh-picked pineapple tastes like. For in the last few days before cutting, a pineapple left on the stalk changes physically from anything we can get in this country. The fibrous core, left growing in the sunlight, suddenly changes into almost pure sugar, soft, sweeter than you would imagine possible, giving to the whole fruit a completely new character."

I have to confess I'm not completely sure about his assessment of pineapple juice, a bit too sweet for me, but then we are lucky here in Australia to have pineapples from Queensland almost as soon as they are cut. Baked beans though are another matter. I have tried to make my own, but I have to say that, although tasty, they were not the same as those out of a can.

Delia too is also more generous - seeing them as a way of helping novice cooks. She has a whole book on the subject: Delia's How to Cheat at Cooking. To be truthful it's not that useful a book in some ways because she uses a lot of products that are not available here. However, she does have some reassuring things to say about 'cheating'.

"Young people are not taught to cook any more. Mums and dads both work but families still need feeding. A look around at what's on offer is not very edifying: expensive but ungenerous ready-made meals, patchy takeaways and an absolute surfeit of addictive fat-laden, sugary snack foods that are pushing the nation towards an obesity crisis. ...

Cooking does not belong exclusively to professional chefs (TV or otherwise). Home cooking always has been and always will be, something different and if you short-circuit some of the accepted rules of cooking and are willing to explore alternatives by adding the cheating element, you can discover a better and easier way of coping when there's not much available time."

The dishes in the book look very tempting though I have to say.

A short word on opening cans. Times have changed haven't they? In my childhood I remember in particular those corned beef tins and sardines. The corned beef tin came with a little sort of key (as did the sardines) with a slot in it. You fitted the slot over a tag and then wound it up which peeled off a strip of the tin around the top. On the sardine tin it rolled back the lid. There was something extremely satisfying about that. Then there were the cans which were opened with tin openers and there are still a few of those around. I have a very old tin opener that works. I have tried to update it every now and then with flashier more modern looking ones, but they do not work as well (like my very ancient garlic press). It has to be said though that opening a tin is a potentially damaging exercise - easy to cut yourself. Nowadays most tins have the ring/pull sort of setup, which also has sharp edges to avoid and which also occasionally fails - the ring snaps off and then what do you do? Very tricky things with knives as levers? At least we can now recycle the tins.

I don't use a lot of tins myself, but there are some things in tins that I can't do without. I checked the store cupboard, and this is what I have: (tins only - I might do jars another time)

Tinned tomatoes - Although you can now get fresh tomatoes all year, there are times that they are expensive and not very good. Tinned tomatoes are an excellent substitute - indeed they often have a stronger taste and a redder look than the fresh ones. Yes there is a glut from Italy and we shouldn't really buy them, but I confess I do.

This display is from Woolworths and is a typical display. There would also be branded Australian ones too. You can get them whole, diced and crushed. I saw one article that said you shouldn't use the juice in the tin as it tastes metallic, but I can't say I have ever noticed this. Bit snobby I think.

Olive oil - I use so much of this that I buy it in a four or five litre tin. And again, there is a glut from mostly Spain and Greece and I guess I mostly buy this. But the Australian olive oil is coming down in price and if it's on a special I will buy that. My guess is that it lasts longer in a tin, as it is not exposed to sunlight. I do also have some expensive bottles for dukkah and other special things.

Sardines - Well I have written previously about these, so no more to say here. I did see an interesting recipe for a sardine paste though - sardines, onion, capers, gherkins, malt vinegar and butter, whizzed together and chilled. I've also seen them used in pasta and on pizze.

Baked beans - They've got to be Heinz English recipe and I don't have beans on toast very often, but we do have baked beans with sausages and cornish pasties. I also sometimes put them in stews or soups. I don't buy the tinned spaghetti. That's not for me.

Beans and Chick Peas - I always have a selection of these. They make super dips (wash, drain and mix with whatever takes your fancy in the food processor - must have olive oil and garlic though). Hummus is a matter of moments to make. I do also have the dried variety and indeed I do stick to dried lentils rather than the tinned ones, but I think once I have finished the various dried beans I have I won't bother with them again. They just take too long. Except perhaps for cassoulet - which I make once in a blue moon. The tinned beans are excellent additions to stews and soups.

Tuna - For salade niçoise, dips and sandwiches. Could be used for fish cakes too.

Salmon - I only use tinned salmon for fish cakes, which I make every now and then. Fresh salmon is so much better for everything else.

Anchovies - well I get them in a jar sometimes, but they used to be only available in tins. Preserved anchovies are different from fresh ones, and quite a distinct taste that I love but David doesn't.

Coconut milk - Again, I think this is the only way you can get it. You can make a decent substitute by pouring boiling water over desiccated coconut, but the tins are good. Not that we use it much, as David doesn't like the taste.

Green peppercorns - You can get dried ones, but the ones in the tin are nicer.

Dog food - well, sadly not any more - I do miss Choccy (and Zac and Pandora too). We used to get through a lot of tins of dog food. Of course, some people do not use the tins - they just give them dry food and claim it is better for the dog.

Mustard powder - I suspect it's just a tradition that this comes in a tin - you can get it in packets too. But it is interesting is it not how some traditions persist, even when it comes to things like mustard!

And that's it for me and tins. Today.

When I was young I used to like corned beef from a tin. It's not the same as the corned beef you buy in the meat department, but it had a unique taste - my guess is it had a lot of salt (and fat) in it. And yes you can still get it. Spam? Processed peas - I used to love processed peas. What were they? How were they processed? They are quite different to real peas. Can you still get them? I must have a look. (The answer is no.) I don't think we had a lot of other things in tins - soups maybe? Yes we had tomato soup and maybe some others too. Oh and Robert Carrier's pears - though more often we had tinned peaches - from Australia. Like he said, peaches were not readily available in England. I suspect we had other tinned fruit too - I vaguely remember mandarins and maybe apricots. They were a quick dessert.

And later in life? I was a failure at breast feeding, so my first son was reared on tins of Carnation evaporated milk. He seemed to thrive on it. David likes beetroot from tins. Ugh!

I do despair a little when I see all those tins in the supermarket, and in spite of Robert Carrier's comments about the French, there are a lot of cans in french supermarkets too. Petits pois are a big thing that is uniquely french and foie gras of course. Mind you there seem to be a diminishing number of complete meals in tins - but I guess they have been replaced by frozen meals and chilled ones too. But soup - why would you need to buy soup in a tin? It's so easy (and quick) to make. And vegetables. Here in Australia we are blessed with an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables. Other than the aforesaid beans and tomatoes I see no need for any other variety in a tin. Will have a look today to see what there is - I can think of mushrooms and asparagus off the top of my head, but what else and why those? Well I did have a look and had, of course, forgotten about corn which is the next biggest thing in cans. I suppose corn is a bit tedious to deal with, but not really. And there were carrots, peas and potatoes!! as well as the aforesaid mushrooms and asparagus. There were also bamboo shoots and water chestnuts - which is understandable - possibly difficult to source these fresh - though there are so many Chinese shops here now that this may not be true. And sauerkraut - fair enough - who wants to make their own sauerkraut? And artichoke hearts - maybe them too. Lots and lots of fish though - huge and varied types and amounts of tuna, closely followed by salmon - there was roast salmon with quinoa in a tin - and lots of lunch friendly ways of packaging tuna. A few sardines, mackerel even less, crabmeat, some oysters and anchovies and one brand of kippers, and that was more or less it. No clams.

If you want to find out a little bit about the history of canning see the sardines article. It's all down to Napoleon wanting to feed his troops apparently.

POSTSCRIPTS

I went to the supermarket today which brought up two aspects of cans/tins that I had completely forgotten about.

First of all I completely forgot about drinks in cans - or tinnies as the Australians love to call them. In fact a tinnie is also one of those small boats that leisure fishermen go out in. I forgot about the drinks because we don't use them much. But they need to be mentioned because they are so widespread. And also because, to my mind anyway, they started all the recycling that we now enjoy. Used aluminium cans used to provide pocket money to small kids. After any kind of event they would go around looking for them, collect them and take them to recycling depots where they would be paid a minimal amount of money for them. And they kept the drinks cooler for longer. I think that's probably where the ring pull came from too. So here's to tinnies.

Secondly - biscuit tins. Nowadays they are collectors' items, because, on the whole, we don't buy biscuits in tins anymore. Well maybe at Christmas or if they are very special biscuits. But this is how they used to be sold - and they kept them fresher at home. We have one in which we keep fruitcake and biscuits. Here in Australia it's the Arnott's biscuit tins that seem to be the prize, but I'm sure there are lots more. The ones on the left, I'm guessing, are American - and old.

So in this case it's the tin itself, not the product inside which is important. Nowadays anyway.