Tinned fish, or conserva, is a tradition in Spain and Portugal. It’s what you eat when you belly up to a tapas bar for a glass of wine. The last few years, seafood preserved in cans — mussels, mackerel, squid, baby eels, tuna bellies, wild cockles — bathing in brine or olive oil have caught on here. Inspired by the Iberian Peninsula’s tinned fishes, Henry and Lisa Lovejoy, pioneers in the sustainable seafood movement who run a seafood business in New Hampshire, introduced Freshé — a line of tinned meals that combine sustainably wild-caught skipjack tuna or Norwegian salmon with vegetables, legumes, olive oil, and spices. The couple works with a centuries-old cannery in Portugal’s coastal city Porto, which produces the products for them. “It’s the oldest cannery in Europe and on the forefront of tinned fish,” says Henry. There are a half a dozen selections with ingredients sourced from the region’s local farms: Barcelona Escalivada has salmon, roasted eggplant, peppers, quinoa, sweet onions, and tomato; Provence Nicoise offers a take on the French salad and includes tuna, fire-roasted peppers, herbs, potatoes, and olives, while Thai Sriracha combines tuna with sweet and sour beans, peanuts, greens, and Asian spices. Other meals have flavors of Moroccan, Sicilian, and Mexican cuisines ($4 to $5 each). The pocket-size tins are convenient for a nutritious on-the-go snack, or use them to top leafy greens or to toss into pasta. These make a good addition to a pantry — the cans have a four-year shelf life. Available at Big Y, Roche Bros., and Whole Foods Market locations; Pemberton Farms Marketplace, 2225 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, 617-491-2244, or go to www.freshemeals.com.
Tinned fish in a sea of global flavors
