Having just arrived back from a holiday to Portugal, I’m still very much in canned fish mode. 

Almost as soon as we got into the heart of Lisbon, I saw a shop that looked like some sort of circus-themed one, but on closer inspection, it housed The Fantastic World of the Portuguese Sardine. I would later go on to realise that this shop seems to be Portugal’s version of London’s M&M’S store (if more sophisticated), but at the time, it was an exciting novelty and visually a stunning feast. It featured many canned fish varieties and flavours all in colourful, commemorative packaging and dated back through the years.

The sardine really is Portugal’s hero food; the country has ancient roots with fishing and preserving sardines, and this continues today, along with many other species local to Portuguese waters.

One of our last visits before returning home was to Setúbal, a port city south of Lisbon where one of Portugal’s first canneries was opened (in 1854, after the first in the southern Algarve in 1853). 

I found out that Setúbal’s Museu do Trabalho Michel Giacometti Museum of Labour is housed in the former M. Perienes Lda Food Canning Factory, but was gutted to see it wasn’t open on Sundays. It being our last day meant I couldn’t arrange to go back another day of our trip, but hopefully in future the opportunity arises again, because apparently there is a permanent canning history exhibition. If any of our readers have visited or have some extra historical information to share abut it, please do let me know!

Nevertheless, this didn’t stop us from picking up some tins of our own from the Mercado do Livramento market in Setúbal, as well as some playing cards mimicking the product itself (pictured below). These are all from JOSÉ. A nice haul, if I do say so myself!

Image: AlexR/Bell Publishing

Which canned fish varieties are you enjoying right now?

Alex Rivers (she/her), CanTech International editor
Keep in touch via email: [email protected], LinkedIn: CanTech International magazine or X: @CanTechIntl