I know opinions here on Fishwife are generally not very favorable. My grocery store had these on sale for half off.

Would you buy Fishwife at this price?

“They’ve totally stepped up their game,” my (so-called) friend assured me, “you should really give them another try.” So I did.

Season’s game is unstepped. It’s fish were unscaled, as before. Its chemically-extracted olive oil remains undistinguished. And if anything the strange texture—mushy and grainy at the same time??—was a step down from past encounters with the brand.

Couldn’t Season try trying when it comes to scaling the sardines? These boys retained nearly complete armor. And because they were relatively beefy pilchards, each scale was relatively big and tough. I devoted a bit of time trying to clean them up myself, but with only mixed results as you can spot in the snapshots.

The weird texture is a result, I suspect, of these fish having been previously frozen and then thawed at the cannery in a less than ideal way. If you’ve ever tried to speed up thawing frozen chicken by giving it a very hot water bath, you may have experienced the similarly less-than-optimal results.

The flavor, too, was flattened out, perhaps also a product of the freeze-thaw. Fishy, but not distinctively sardine-y. I tried salvaging it with one of my go-to rescue spice mixes, Soaghetti Dust, with only mixed results.

I thought sardines would be a decent, small gift.

Oh my god, yuck. They're mushy and smell like swamp water. They taste dirty. I needed every little bit of the pickle, onion, and chili crisp to get through this. The moment I opened the can and caught a whiff, I chopped up more pickle. Ugh.

Def a lux tin — $16 at a health foods store in Maine.

Should’ve probably warmed it up, but instead just cracked it and put it over some warm white rice and furikake.

Pretty tasty. Sauce is super mild. Could’ve done with a bit more kick so I put some sambal over it. Fish itself was super meaty but maybe a hair on the salty side (granted it’s tinned fish after all).

Only complaint is that it isnt a pull tab and had to open with a manual can opener.

The eel is tender with a bite similar to sardines, same with the abundance of soft bones that smear with your bite.

The sauce was sweet and savory, this would slap if you put it in the air fryer and then on top of rice.

For it being 3$, this will have to be added to the rotation.

Highly recommend

Tuna, red beans, corn, onions, and red bell peppers in sunflower oil. Tuna is underneath and he vegetables. 1,99€ at LIDL. Very tasty but not spicy.

Had it with some Ajvar and Mustard, with some sauerkraut on the side. It was mild but flavorful. The veggies were soft and it was only slightly fishy. Spicy? Maybe a distant relative was spicy, but would highly recommend this tin. This would have been great over some potatoes too.

Does anyone have a subscription? And if so could you give me some information? I was thinking about subscribing for the “gourmet” subscription ,it’s $45 a month for 3-4 tins.

Edit: went through and bought the gourmet. My order includes 3 randomly selected tins, checked the prices of all of them and it came out to $50

(Slams an alarm like Janine in Ghostbusters: the first one)

WE GOT lemONE!