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概要：罐头食品一度只是战时才需要的食品，往往让人联想到困难的生活状态。而今，短视频网红带火了罐头食品，你喜欢吃罐头食品吗？(生词在留言区)

Tinned fish is swimming against the tide

罐头食品的逆袭

Once a staple of wartime diets, it is now a social-media phenomenon

曾经是战时主食，现在却成为了社交媒体宠儿

8月 01, 2024 09:21 上午 | NEW YORK

MEI LIAO pulls back the can’s lid to reveal sardines swimming in a garlic and herb butter. In other videos she stuffs russet-coloured smoked mackerel into a sandwich or arranges spratswith capers and cucumber. Ms Liao says tinned fish is often considered “akin to cat food or bunker food”. But, posting as @daywithmei, she has turned it into a viral treat: her videos have millions of views on TikTok.

Mei Liao打开罐头盖子，露出了浸泡在蒜香香草黄油中的沙丁鱼。在别的视频中，她将烟熏马鲛鱼塞进三明治，或者把小鲱鱼和酸豆和黄瓜一起摆放。Liao女士说，罐头鱼通常被认为是“类似猫粮或战时食物”。但是，Mei Liao以@daywithmei的身份发布视频，已经将其变成了一种病毒式传播的美食：她的视频在TikTok上的观看量达到了数百万次。

The canning process was invented during the Napoleonic wars. Fresh food was in short supply, particularly for those on military and naval expeditions, and so foods preserved in jars became essential sources of sustenance. Later, during the second world war, tinned fish became a staple part of diets. For a long time this gave any food packed in aluminium or steel connotations of hardship. But now tinned fish is back: on social media, on restaurant menus and in Gen Z’s cupboards. What changed?

罐头加工技术是在拿破仑战争期间发明的。当时，新鲜食物供应短缺，对于那些在军事和海军远征中的人来说，尤其如此。因此保存在罐子里的食物成为了重要的营养来源。后来，在第二次世界大战期间，罐头鱼成为了主要食品。长期以来，这样的历史总是让人们将铝或钢包装的食物和生活困难联系在一起。但现在罐头鱼又回来了：在社交媒体、餐厅菜单，以及00后的橱柜里。到底是什么发生了变化？

The product itself, for starters. Canned fish has been part of the Iberian food scene since the 19th century: shops across Portugal are dedicated to the vibrantly coloured cans. Becca Millstein encountered artisanal tinned fish, such as pulpo en aceite de oliva (octopus in olive oil), while studying in Europe. Realising that American equivalents were “frozen in the 1960s”, she co-founded Fishwife, a food company, in 2020. Stockists are popping up to meet gourmands’ demands. The Fantastic World of the Portuguese Sardine opened in Times Square in New York last summer. The shop offers more than 30 varieties of tinned fish, including eels and whelks.

首先是产品本身变了。自19世纪以来，罐头鱼一直属于伊比利亚食品的一部分：葡萄牙商店专门销售各种色彩鲜艳的罐头。Becca Millstein在欧洲学习时遇到了手工制作的罐头鱼，例如橄榄油章鱼。她意识到美国罐头还“停留在1960年代”，于是在2020年共同创立了食品公司Fishwife。不断涌现的供应商满足了食客的需求。The Fantastic World of the Portuguese Sardine(葡萄牙沙丁鱼的奇妙世界)去年夏天在纽约时代广场开业。这家商店提供包括鳗鱼和螺类在内的30多种罐头鱼。

Patrick Martinez founded The Tinned Fish Market, a British online-delivery business, in 2018. “I remember doing farmers’ markets and people getting upset because our sardines were £3 [$3.90]”, over five times the cost of supermarket tins. Yet “The pandemic changed our appreciation of food,” he says, as people had more time to indulge and experiment with unfamiliar flavours. Now high-end products are his company’s main draw. In America, too, sales of premium tinned fish—anything exceeding $5 a tin—are growing at triple the rate of the broader market.

Patrick Martinez在2018年创立了英国在线配送网站“罐头鱼市场”（The Tinned Fish Market）。“我记得在农贸市场上，人们因为我们的沙丁鱼价格为3英镑（约合3.90美元）的高价而感到失望，”这一价格是超市罐头价格的五倍以上。然而，“疫情改变了我们对食物的看法，”他说，人们有更多的时间来尝试不熟悉的口味。现在，高端罐头产品是他公司的主打产品。在美国，高端罐头鱼——超过5美元一罐——的销售增长速度是整个市场的三倍。

Branding is an important part of the revival. Ms Millstein credits much of Fishwife’s success to social media; the company targets Gen Z and millennial consumers online. Videos of influencers unboxing retro-looking tins are both fun and helpful. Many people do not know what to do with something like tinned sardines, Ms Liao says, and some worry about choking on the bones. Watching instructional videos makes it “less scary” for the uninitiated.

品牌重塑是罐头鱼回归的重要原因。Millstein女士将Fishwife公司成功的很大一部分归功于社交媒体；该公司在网上针对00后和80/90后消费者。网红们打开复古外观罐头的视频既有趣又有帮助。Liao女士说，很多人不知道如何处理沙丁鱼罐头，一些人还担心鱼刺会卡喉咙。教学视频让初学者感到“不那么可怕”。

Tinned fish may be paving the way for cans’ comeback: there are more than 335m posts on TikTok related to “Spam food”. A new generation of consumers has peeled away unflattering assumptions about preserved foodstuffs and highlighted their convenience. Time to stock up. ■

罐头鱼可能将启动罐头食品的回归：TikTok上有超过3.35亿个与“午餐肉食品”相关的帖子。新一代消费者抛弃了腌制食品不健康的不良假设，反而强调它们的便利性。是时候囤点罐头食品了。■

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