We Spent 40€ on Canned Fish

And it is Worth Every Penny

If you have been a regular reader, you know that I am thrifty…frugal…some would say cheap. If you have not tried canned fish in Portugal you are likely thinking there is a typo above. Four cans of fish for 40 euros? Did she mean 40¢? Nope!

Not your ordinary canned fish store.

Feed Phil

I first learned about the Portuguese love affair with canned fish by watching the Netflix video Somebody, Feed Phil. Phil visits a shop in Lisbon’s Time Out Market that only sells canned fish. So the first time I saw canned fish in the supermarket I was not that shocked at the price. This is not your basic Chicken of the Sea. Here, canned fish is not the thing you grab when you are on a diet and need to wolf down something mindlessly. Here, it is a very special gastronomic pleasure made with the finest olive oil, garlic, and spices.

So many choices…

Comur

In yesterday’s post, I shared a photo of a bookstore that doesn’t look like a typical bookstore. The same can be said of Comur, this is not your ordinary canned fish store. There are over 20 Comur stores in Portugal. I first happened upon one during our first rainy visit to Lisbon when most stores were still closed. When I peered through the window I thought, “It looks like a jewelry store for tuna fish…” But Comur is so much more.

Founded in 1942 in Murtosa, near Aveiro, initially, the company was dedicated to the world export of eels. The lagoon was filled with eels which were fried and preserved in pickled sauce by women that sold them at local fairs.

Today, Comur produces around thirty varieties of canned goods, painstakingly prepared by the experienced, wise hands of over a hundred women who transform the flavours of the sea into delicacies using handmade production methods…And if it is true that the fish is excellent, it is memory that makes the real essence of Comur live on. A memory that lives in the people who work here, and who, in the subtlety of its simplicity, keep in themselves the alchemy of making preserves. People with Portuguese soul, whose hands perform what the heart dictates. People who, for the most part, cycle to the factory each day, as their mothers and grandmothers did in the past, and for whom manual labour carries the art and weight of generations that follow each other in Comur’s long narrative. Matilde, who has worked here for 46 years and is the factory’s most senior worker, Adriana and Susana, her daughters, and Daniela, one of the granddaughters, are some of the many women who write Comur’s history every day and for whom the whole world fits in a can. — Comur

Suggest a caption for this photo in the comment section below.

Marketing Geniuses

Not only are their products top shelf, but so is their marketing. You can’t just walk by a store that looks like this. And once inside you want to buy the product for its artwork. One of the attentive and knowledgeable store clerks pointed out the cans showing the years Comur has been in operation and suggested we buy the ones showing the year of our birth. She explained how to open the can so we could retain the artwork…I see a shadow box in our futures.

The box was also beautiful and included additional marketing materials.

Denise loves sardines…I fear the bones. But the clerk explained that the fish are de-spined. Thus we ended up with 2 sardines, octopus, and cod. We have learned each can will provide a perfect lunch for two. Perhaps we will also have a glass of wine, and savor our mid-day meal for 90 minutes because of course, we live in Portugal.