Eat This Podcast
Talking about anything around food

Fish names are hard

15 July 2025 Filed under:

“An anchovy, to get to an important point, is a larval sardine (Engraulis encrasicolus). Around Nice, anchovies are called poutines (not to be confused with fast-food from Quebec).” This, from a writer I have long respected for their meticulous research, rang alarm bells. Nowhere, ever, have I come across the idea that an anchovy is […]

“An anchovy, to get to an important point, is a larval sardine (Engraulis encrasicolus). Around Nice, anchovies are called poutines (not to be confused with fast-food from Quebec).”

This, from a writer I have long respected for their meticulous research, rang alarm bells. Nowhere, ever, have I come across the idea that an anchovy is a larval sardine. A sardine, I’ve always thought (known?) is a young pilchard. And an anchovy is … an anchovy. These days, though, you can’t be too sure, so I turned to the magisterial Mediteranean Seafood by the master, Alan Davidson (2nd edition, Penguin, 1981).

My worst fears, confirmed: Someone is Wrong on the Internet.

Illustration of a sardine from Mediterranean Seafood

Davidson is clear. What people in Britain call a sardine is a young pilchard, Sardina pilchardus, though elsewhere many different species of small fish are called sardines.

He adds:

“Larval sardines and anchovies (p. 48) are known as poutine or poutina in the south of France, and bianchetti or gianchetti in parts of Italy.”

Could that be the source of the confusion? It is ambiguous. Are poutines larval sardines and larval anchovies, or are only the sardines larval?

In my opinion, that “larval” is misleading, because the larval stage for sardines and for anchovies is only a few millimetres long, simply floating along with other plankton. Perhaps the sentence would be clearer as “Anchovies and small sardines …”. At any rate, that’s how I read it.

Turning to page 48, Davidson correctly identifies the European anchovy as Engraulis encrasicolus and he offers a useful tip. “Note that the lower jaw projects markedly less than the upper one.”

Illustration of an anchovy from Mediterranean Seafood

Obligatory self-promotion: The Swedish Fish Conundrum (ansjovis are sprats, not anchovies) came up in 2024’s Christmas Special Sensual, Salty, and a Little Bit Spicy.

A quinoa dilemma

12 June 2025 Filed under: Tags:

Quinoa is not a staple at our house. I like it a lot, but I don’t make it that often. If I did, I would probably already have negotiated a way through the ethical maze that confronts me. Should I buy quinoa from its homeland in South America, and if so should it be the […]

Quinoa is not a staple at our house. I like it a lot, but I don’t make it that often. If I did, I would probably already have negotiated a way through the ethical maze that confronts me. Should I buy quinoa from its homeland in South America, and if so should it be the morally superior stuff grown by small farmers on the altiplano of Peru and Bolivia, or the industrial stuff grown on the coast by greedy land barons cashing in on the mystique cultivated by the local people they despise?

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Baked Indoctrination

15 April 2025 Filed under: Tags: ,

This time of year, approximately speaking, is ripe for investigating food and cultures, as in the episode Celebrating Passover and Easter. With Passover just behind and Easter just ahead, I’m happy to resurrect some more ancient posts.

This time of year, approximately speaking, is ripe for investigating food and cultures, as in the episode Celebrating Passover and Easter. With Passover just behind and Easter just ahead, I’m happy to resurrect some more ancient posts.

An illustration showing, on the left, the Pilsbury Dough Boy with the legend He Is Risen! and Happy Easter! and, on the right, a similar figure made of matzoh rather than dough with the legend He Is Not! and Happy Passover

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Insects will not make pet food more sustainable either

18 October 2024 Filed under: Tags:

Somewhat sad to see Marion Nestle, with whom I almost always agree, linking, without question or comment, to an article in a pet-food trade journal which suggests that insect protein is a key solution to a sustainable pet food industry. The article contains some eye-opening numbers for the pet food business in the US and […]

Somewhat sad to see Marion Nestle, with whom I almost always agree, linking, without question or comment, to an article in a pet-food trade journal which suggests that insect protein is a key solution to a sustainable pet food industry. The article contains some eye-opening numbers for the pet food business in the US and globally, as well as some dubious claims about pet health; they are not properly sourced, so I’m not going to bother to address them.

I do, however, take issue with this:

“In terms of sustainability, the key point is that this isn’t just greenwashing,” said Hobbs. “Insect protein in pet food truly has a significant positive impact.”

It is just greenwashing.

Hobbs is Aaron Hobbs, executive director of the North American Coalition for Insect Agriculture (NACIA), so Mandy Rice-Davies applies. The key point, which neither he nor Marion Nestle seem to have appreciated, but which you will because you listened to the recent episode on insects as food (for people and their pets), is that the “waste” that insects are reducing is usually a feed product that could be given direct to livestock and, in some cases, people and their pets.

Premium-priced insect-based pet food might assuage the consciences of some pet owners, but it is unlikely to do anything at all for food waste.

Formula Recall Boosts Breastfeeding Department of Silver Linings

21 February 2024 Filed under: Tags:

Yesterday’s graph from USDA is really interesting. It shows that the February 2022 recall of formula milk in the US, which compounded the supply chain difficulties of Covid, was associated with a striking increase in the number of infants fully and partially breastfed (and a drop in the number fully formula fed). The survey covers […]

Graph showing changes in infant breastfeed over time, including the formula recall of February 2022

Yesterday’s graph from USDA is really interesting. It shows that the February 2022 recall of formula milk in the US, which compounded the supply chain difficulties of Covid, was associated with a striking increase in the number of infants fully and partially breastfed (and a drop in the number fully formula fed).

The survey covers only people enrolled in the USDA’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), so it isn’t comprehensive, but it represents a more vulnerable sector of society. It also shows that while formula offers the benefit of convenience, when push comes to shove many women are able to breastfeed more. Of course I would like to see a more detailed breakdown that factors in things like the need to be out working, but I find these results encouraging.

These findings also suggest a way out for mothers faced with what today’s Guardian said are “historically high” prices for formula in the UK.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) found in November that the average price of infant formula had risen by 25% in the past two years and families could save more than £500 over the first year of a baby’s life by switching to cheaper powders.

They could save even more by breastfeeding more and for longer.

Syndicated to the mothership.