Thread: Uncommon edibles

I had to add this one to the list... A few years back while trout fishing in Michigan on one of the streams I grew up on I had the unfortunate (or fortunate depending on your point of view) experience of catching several hundred creek chubs, daces and shiners and not a single trout of any species. I started out just pitching the annoying egg eaters onto the banks, but that seemed like a waste so I began keeping them thinking that I might use them for bait at some point. I ended up taking home a few hundred 5"-10" baitfish. Used a bunch for fertilizer in the garden (grew some amazing squash, beans and corn that year) but then started thinking that I could make my own "sardines". I bought a pressure canner and since I like sardines in mustard on ritz crackers (especially with a cold beer) I thought I'd give it a try. Turns out, once you gut, dehead, and scale them with your thumbnail, pack them into half pint jars with a tsp of mustard, a tsp olive oil and 1/4 tsp salt, pressure can at 10 lbs for 100 minutes the little boogers are delicious.

So not only did I find a new way to enjoy "bait", I'm also helping out the few remaining native brook trout by thinning out the fish that eat their eggs and young.

We no longer see the fish you described much any more where we live. We ate many suckers as shore lunches when I was a kid, and they were wonderful.

I have been tempted to make sardine with the sardines we catch at the pier but I would need to borrow a pressure cooker.

Originally Posted by CarlF

I have been tempted to make sardine with the sardines we catch at the pier but I would need to borrow a pressure cooker.

I don't know about a pressure cooker, but I think you will need a boy sardine and girl sardine to actually make sardines.

Correction: I thought about canning sardines....

Ask Roger (Rogsman) about canning (spanish) sardines