Going Overboard

We ate half of these sardines within minutes of finishing cooking and photographing them. You might say that we were missing the point somewhat, since sardines ‘in saor’ is a technique that evolved for their preservation rather than as a cooking method. All over the Mediterranean, people developed means of coping with the excessive abundance of sardines produced by the vagaries of tides and the good luck of fishermen. It is hardly surprising that sardines were one of the first products to which the canning industry devoted its energies.