Sardines

Trying to eat low on the food chain and all that, I've bought a few cans of sardines over the last few months. They're sustainable, healthy, full of omega-3s-- what's not to like? Well... they're sardines. Yesterday, another snow day, I made a pot of lentil soup for lunch and Michael noticed the sardines in the cupboard. He brandished them: today would be the day for sardines!

I proclaimed to the children that we would eat a can of tiny fish for supper. They were immediately intrigued.

"Let's eat them now! I can't WAIT until supper."

"Will they be green? or blue fish?"

"I think they will be light- no, dark turquoise."

"Maybe it will be one BIG fish in there!"

"Are they alive?"

At last the moment arrived. As I peeled back the lid on the can, the children hunched forward expectantly, like cats.

Five or six recognizably fishy bodies lay inside, intact except for their heads and fins. Everyone was silent for a moment.

"I want the biggest one."

"No I want the biggest one!"

"They have tiny bones inside."

"Do we eat them, like kiwi seeds?"

"My fish doesn't have seeds."

Readers, they devoured them. They picked up the little, cold, oily, fishy bodies with their fingers and chowed them right down. And when the sardines were gone, they begged to have the "sauce" (fishy olive oil) drizzled over their rice, which they also demolished.

It was a little like watching those old anthropologist films of eskimo babies eating whale blubber. I guess they knew what they needed, though, because it was another snow day today. With bonus ice storm! Henry just came in soaking wet from playing out in his snow fort for an hour and a half. So all those lipids are doing their job.