All hail tuna fish! Long admired as a tasty treat residing in something so unremarkable as a lowly tin can, tuna is a miracle food by any standard. Even with today's disturbing news that consumption of the albacore variety should be limited due to higher than healthy levels of mercury in the world's oceans, tuna remains a wondrous convenience for those seeking a speedy, and inexpensive, protein-packed meal. Yes, canned tuna is a true credit to human ingenuity.
As a child, my mother was famous for what she called her "nice little tuna sandwiches." Light years ahead of her time in the area of nutrition, she was busy broiling, steaming or baking most of our dinner entrees while our sadly misinformed friends, relatives and neighbors fried or sauted all manner of fish, fowl and hoof. Even innocent and defenseless vegetables could not escape the onslaught of butter and cream.
My mother, ever the trendsetter, chose to serve us "clean" protein along with not one, but two green and streamed veggies and a hearty fresh-from-the-garden salad every night for dinner. Such a culinary style was virtually unheard of in the ‘50s. Like all kids, I thought her insanely weird at the time and, whenever possible, I wrangled a dinner invitation at a friend's house just to enjoy a normal meal: fried hamburger patties, fried onions, fried potatoes, and Jell-O salad drenched in whipped cream. As you can well imagine, the report of my decadent dinner and my delirious enjoyment of said bounty was not met with approval on the home front.
Those nice "little tuna sandwiches" on whole-wheat bread – back in the days of yore when Wonder Bread was king – were a staple of my youth. They would appear at lunch, dinner, and most frequently at suppertime – snugly wrapped in waxed paper and doled out to grubby little hands on the beach near our home. Because my dad worked nights when I was growing up, my mother would often take my brother and me swimming on summer evenings, always in time to witness a spectacular California sun as it slowly dipped below the horizon. For lucky kids like us it was the end of another perfect day.
After a tenuous dip at the water's edge, for the tide was powerful in those early evening hours, we would dine alfresco on mother's "nice little tuna sandwiches," sliced fruit and fresh vegetables. There was rarely a Cheeto, a Frito or a potato chip in sight. When I think of that long ago time, I can hear the waves slapping against the shore and recall the way my toes felt as I dug them ever deeper into the cool sand that surrounded our cozy blanket home. No sandwich would ever taste as good as the ones I munched on the California beach of my childhood.
Through college and my eventual marriage, I tried many times to duplicate the exact taste of my mother's tuna concoction, but to no avail. As I approached the birth of my first child, I decided it was time to delve into some serious homemaking and I invited my mother to help with this task. As she casually examined the contents of my cupboard one day as were preparing lunch, she turned a perplexing look my way and remarked, not though not unkindly, "Why do you have this brown tuna in your pantry?”
Embarrassed, I offered the defense that, as a young couple just starting out in life, we were simply cutting corners and that by purchasing the "other" (read: dark, stinky, bargain) kind of tuna, I was saving considerable cents. A lecture on appropriate tuna choices and the importance of proper nutrition for my family followed. I promised never to disgrace my family again by serving them anything but light tuna – the "tuna of champions," as my mother often called it. And as always, my mother was right.
Today, with our society's ever-changing emphasis and obsession on what is healthy, low calorie, low carb, high fiber, and the like, the status of tuna fish remains a constant. The same accolade is reserved for the best recipe of how to prepare and serve this delightful seafood delicacy between two slices of bread. As my story ends, know only that to this day, try as I might, I have never captured the identical taste of my mother's recipe in my own "nice little tuna sandwiches." The good news, however, is that at this mature point in my life, I have chosen to think that she purposely told me all the ingredients save one, and in doing so allowed me the opportunity to create a tuna tale that is uniquely my own.