Culture | World in a dish

Tinned fish is swimming against the tide

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

Colourful packaging of 'Fishwife Tinned Seafood Co' produce. Two opens tins of Smoked Rainbow Trout surrounded by green boxes.
Photograph: Stephanie Gonot
|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 sprats with 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.

From the August 3rd 2024 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

Discover more

Angela Merkel in Frankfurt, Germany in December 1991

Angela Merkel sets out to restore her reputation

But her new memoir is unlikely to change her critics’ minds

Blue books forming a winner rosette on a red background

The best books of 2024, as chosen by The Economist

Readers will never think the same way again about games, horses and spies


Elon Musk speaks at the Milken Institute's Global Conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

What to read to understand Elon Musk

The world’s richest man was shaped by science fiction


Tech and religion are very much alike

They both have gods, rich institutions and secretive cultures

Woodrow Wilson’s reputation continues to decline

A dispassionate new biography chronicles the former president’s hostility to suffrage

The cult of Jordan Peterson

What the Canadian intellectual gets right about young men