Poteat
So, does this look like an inviting lunch or, does it look like someone just lost their lunch?
For most of my life, I looked down my nose at sardines.
Indeed, if a freshly opened tin of sardines was in the same room as me, I usually held my nose until they were either eaten or swam away.
Pick the adjective, I used it.
Slimy … stinky … fishy … rank … putrid … rotten … funky … and yes, even skunky. I used them all.
I was no stranger to sardines as a child. My Old Man loved a lunch of sardines and saltines. Ditto for my older brother Johnny. But for me, no thanks.
I could see how a hungry dog might eat sardines. Couldn’t figure out why a hungry human, and I mean a starving one, would.
Times change, however. Times change and men grow old and sometimes old men need to rethink their nutritional priorities.
I’ve been having trouble with the old ticker of late. A bit of woozy here. A bit of chest pain there. Even one incident of passing out cold and coming to on the bedroom floor wondering where I was and what happened.
Dinah was fast asleep, so even in my dazed state I knew a rolling pin had not been applied to the side of my skull.
As to what is causing these symptoms, so far, medical science has been baffled. I’ve been poked and prodded, jabbed and stabbed, scanned and X-rayed, had enough blood drawn to float the Titanic, even been subjected to a heart catheterization.
So far, nothing definitive. I’ll let you know if that changes. Or look in The Paper for the announcement of services and the receiving of friends.
But no matter what the definitive medical prognosis turns out to be, a very obvious conclusion for me and Dr. Isserman of Blue Ridge Cardiology was that I needed to eat better and substantially reduce the spare tire that had stealthily formed around my waist over the last decade.
As any well-informed, semi-literate inhabitant of the modern digital age would do, I turned to my friend ChatGPT for answers.
“Chat, my man,” I said, addressing him, her, or it as if we’re old buddies. “My heart’s about to give out and I need to change my lowdown ways. What should I eat?”
Within seconds, Chat spat back the answer: “Sardines and lots of them.”
Here’s the first reason (one of many) that Chat gave me for adding sardines to my diet:
“Eating sardines regularly offers exceptional systemic health advantages, primarily because they deliver a highly concentrated dose of omega-3 fatty acids, complete proteins, and vital bone-strengthening minerals in a single, whole-food source.”
Reading on, I learned that the regular ingestion of sardines can ease atherosclerosis, drop blood pressure, lower the risk of heart attack, improve bone density, reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s, and even improve mood and fight off depression.
I also learned that in a head-to-head nutritional cage match, $2 sardines trump $20 salmon every time.
Researching further, I learned that tinned sardines are healthiest when packed in extra-virgin olive oil — think Mediterranean diet — and are best eaten on whole wheat crackers such as Triscuits.
They can also be added to salads, layered on a sandwich, or simply eaten, unadorned, right out of the can.
Of course, all of that healthy goodness means absolutely nothing if you can’t choke the little boogers down.
I consulted with folk who regularly eat sardines.
Douse them with vinegar, said one.
Hot sauce is the key, said another.
Mustard, answered a third, lots of mustard.
Don’t care much for vinegar, but I’m a huge fan of both mustard and hot sauce.
Flipping a coin, I went with hot sauce for my first dive into the murky waters of sardines.
I opened the tin and then used a fork to portion out the sardine pieces over perhaps eight or nine whole wheat crackers. I then topped each serving with a very healthy dollop of hot sauce.
Nothing left to do but dive in.
I shoveled the first cracker into my mouth. Chewed quickly. Swallowed rapidly.
Not bad. Not bad at all. Within moments, the plate was clean and I had fatty acids and proteins and soft bones and calcium and Vitamin D swimming all through my body.
A few days later, I tried the mustard. Again, pretty good. Just down the hatch. Quickly.
As a quick postscript, I have to add that I will be eating my sardines at home, not in the offices of The Paper.
Publisher Allen VanNoppen is extremely sensitive to food smells in the office, once banishing a poor sod from the kingdom because he dared to reheat salmon and broccoli in the office microwave.
Told that I was adding sardines to my diet, VanNoppen, who recently returned from a fact-finding mission in Egypt, said, “Even the Egyptians prefer camel crap to sardines. Bring that @%? into the office and it’s ‘Goodbye Charlie.’”
Getting old, I’ve discovered, involves a fair amount of eating crow. Sometimes it means admitting that the things you dismissed as a kid aren’t so bad after all. Sometimes it means listening to your doctor instead of your taste buds.
And sometimes it means swallowing your pride, downing a few sardines, and hoping the old ticker appreciates the sacrifice.
