Does more expensive sardines mean better sardines?

Would you pay £6.74 for a tin of sardines? What if it was supposed to be the best tin of sardines? Ok, what if you won the lottery and after you’d painted the town red and upgraded your car – would you then pay £6.74 for a tin of sardines?

You can tell that these questions were being posed by someone who had never eaten a tin of £6.74 sardines. In short, I didn’t know if they’d be worth the money.

As a regular consumer of tinned fish (sardines are currently a la mode), I found it difficult shelling out £2.50 last week on a tin of Irish sardines (Shines Wild Irish Sardines in Tomato Sauce). However, shell out I did and they were savoured at length last Saturday morning. Served up on buttered toast and with just a grinding of black pepper and a few drops of Tabasco Habanero by way of seasoning, they went down as a delicious treat. But were they any better than a supermarket’s own-brand sardines?

Here was me thinking I was a sardine aficionado but to be honest, I’m not entirely sure. Don’t get me wrong Mr Shines, I thoroughly enjoyed your sardines and I licked the plate clean but in these times of fiscal fiasco, I am acutely aware that I could have purchased two other tins for the price of your one. Am I missing something? Should I taste test one of the Shines tins alongside a cheaper tin? Is the very Irishness if these fish adding to the price?

To advance my new research, I then decided to buy and eat as many different types of sardines as I could find. It turns out there is a great many varieties out there, which I suppose it to be expected seeing as how sardines in their various iterations are in wide abundance across the world’s oceans.

I also discovered quite quickly that any true comparison of tinned sardines would be incomplete without me ordering a few cans online, or at least finding a local retailer which has a few foreign tins lining their shelves.

Which brings me back to my original question: Would I pay £6.74 for a tin of sardines?

Ortiz Sardines (from Spain) is the tin in question and to be fair, everything I had read about these little fishies was positive, despite the price tag. Surprisingly (for me at least) they weren’t even the most expensive that I could find.

Ramon Pena’s Sardines in Spicy Olive Oil (also from Spain) are priced at £7.20.

Don Reinaldo Smoked and Boneless Sardines (also from Spain) are an eye-watering £7.95.

And Espinaler’s Sardines in Oilve Oil which are dubbed ‘tinned sardines at their finest‘’ will set you back a whopping £8.95 for a single, solitary tin.

Further research unearthed a slightly surprising fact (again, for me at least): Good sardines are expected to get better with age, but only when they’ve tinned in good olive oil.

“Seriously?” I said aloud.

“Apparently so,” the internet told me.

You may or may not remember but some time ago I embarked on a baked bean challenge, trying out as many tins of baked beans as I could lay my hands on. Truth be told, I fairly sickened myself with baked beans eating them for lunch every day for over a week and so on this occasion, I resolved to cut to the chase.

If you’re still reading this, I’ll go right ahead and assume that, like me, you’ve eaten a tin or two of sardines in your time. I’ll also go right ahead and assume that you enjoy your fishy breakfasts or lunches or whenever you see fit to dine on them. I’ll also go right ahead and assume that you don’t need me waxing lyrical about the flavours of Tesco’s own-brand sardines with chilli, lime and coriander (a tin I have enjoyed on many a Saturday morning).

Cutting to the chase, I decided to buy the most expensive tin I could find, eat the sardines as I normally would (on buttered toast with a squirt of lime, black pepper and possibly a pinch of salt) and then give you my opinion (for what it’s worth).

Initially, the most expensive tin of sardines I could find were Don Reinaldo’s Galician Sardines – Gran Reserva at £9.95.

“Big, silver beauties tinned the day they are caught,” the website told me. “Gran Reserva means the sardines are matured for six months, thus enhancing their flavours.”

My excitement lasted as long as it took for me to reach the check-out on this vendor website and I realised I’d have to fork out (quite literally) £14.95 (inclusive of posting and packaging) for my sardines.

Call me a parsimonious Percy but I ultimately decided that £14.95 might be a bit of a push seeing as how I haven’t yet painted the town red or even upgraded my car. The result? I deferred back to the still-really-expensive tin of Ortiz for £6.74. It turns out I would pay £6.74 for a tin of sardines. But would I buy a second tin?

THE NEXT DAY

So, I scoffed the tin of Ortiz this morning for breakfast. But were they worth £6.74?

At first blush (or hush) after I opened the tin, the odour of the sardines was much like any other. No great shakes there, then.

Heeled out onto buttered sourdough toast (as in one of the pictures), my first impression was that the fish themselves were quite large, much bigger in fact that the inhabitants of other, cheaper tins. This perhaps also aided and abetted the texture, which was quite firm. Flavour-wise, these were definitely sardines – I could have said as much blindfolded but were they six times as flavoursome as one of my regular tins? The simple answer is no.

Like the Shines, they were great; the olive oil was a much better quality and the taste of the fish shone through that delicacy. But six times as good? Not a holy hope.

If anything this little experiment has proven than I don’t have to spend big money to get a good fish hit. The Ortiz were lovely, but they are not so far ahead of some of the own-brand tins lining the supermarket shelves – certainly not six times as far ahead.

Dear Ortiz, you’re good. But you’re not that good,

Ultimately, we have to remember that in these times of fiscal fiasco, every little helps.