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Tunny Fish, Pickled
Open a small can of tunny fish, cut six very thin, small slices, dress on a side dish with a few leaves green lettuce and six slices lemon and serve.
An assembly rather than a cooking recipe: the whole thing is a plated antipasto of canned tuna, lettuce and lemon. A few notes on what the words meant when it was written.
- "Tunny fish"Tunny is simply the older British name for tuna. The recipe does not say how the tin was packed; thin slicing implies a solid piece rather than flaked fish, and oil-packed tuna of the Mediterranean type would suit.
- "Pickled" in the titleNothing is pickled in the method; the heading may be no more than a loose label for preserved tinned fish, with the lemon supplying whatever sharpness the name suggests.
- Slicing solid tunaThin slices require a solid loin pack, not the flaked or chunk style. Chill the can first, lift the piece out whole with a fork under it, and cut across the grain with a thin-bladed knife so the slices hold together.
- Oil packing mattersWater-packed tuna will crumble and taste flat on a plate this bare. Choose oil-packed and spoon a little of the tin oil over the fish, since there is no dressing otherwise.
- A small canThe recipe does not state a weight. Any small tin holding a solid piece should give the six slices called for.
- Yield and servingSix slices dressed on a side dish; the recipe does not say how many it serves. Serve cold. It carries no dressing or seasoning as written.
Canned tuna in olive oil was a Mediterranean staple long before it became an American sandwich filling, and this side dish sets out preserved fish with lemon and a leaf or two of salad. The International Cook Book belongs to a wave of early twentieth-century American collections that gathered dishes from immigrant and European kitchens for hostesses working through a long, many-coursed menu, where a light cold plate opened the meal. Tuna canning in the United States is generally traced to the Southern California fishery in the first decade of the 1900s, and this recipe assumes a tin of tunny on the shelf.