The Blade’s Best Albacore Tuna

This week my wife visited with a friend and for lunch, the friend made tuna sandwiches. What made these sandwiches unique was the tuna that she used: The Blade’s Best Albacore Tuna. Tired of bland tasting store tuna, our friends had visited a seafood store in Garibaldi which is located in Oregon along the Pacific Ocean. Our friends liked the sample of tuna they tried, so they purchased an entire case of natural flavored canned tuna to take home.

When my wife returned home, she brought a gift of one of the cans of the tuna with her. I am used to tuna can packaging found in the grocery store with friendly fish wearing sunglasses or mermaid Tinkerbelle trying to entice me to buy. The can of The Blade’s tuna has a strong almost G.I. Joe military look to it (It’s probably the stencil font used in the title and the crossed blades as part of the logo). The cans of The Blade’s tuna are also larger than most store tunas; 8 ounces instead of the typical 7 ounces, so the cans have a more substantial look and feel.

The can does provide some information about the tuna: “Hand cut in Garibaldi Oregon, using only the premium quality tenderloin. Homestyle canned in it’s own juices.” The ingredients list: Albacore tuna, salt in natural juices.

We decided to have tuna sandwiches for lunch, so I opened the can and drained the “natural juices” (includes some oil) and looked at the tuna. I must say that it just looked like a white chunk of meat in a can. I am used to our Chicken of the Sea tuna that is packed as a crosscut piece of tuna so you can see the ribbing and tell that it is a fish product. Not to judge by the looks, I emptied the can into a bowl and used a fork to break the tuna into chunks. I tried a piece of the tuna and it does have a nice tuna flavor that is not overly fishy or oily.

I made tuna sandwiches for our lunch, we enjoyed the sandwich along with some dill pickle and a spoonful of Artichoke Rice Salad with Shrimp that I made the night before (it tasted much better chilled). My wife really enjoyed the real tuna taste of this sandwich; she has mentioned several times that our regular tuna doesn’t have any flavor.

Earlier in the day, I went shopping at our town’s Saturday morning market, and there was a booth selling seafood from the Oregon coast. Normally I would not have noticed their products, but because I had been looking at the can of The Blade’s Best tuna, I was surprised to see some of the cans for sale on their table. I was more surprised at the price of $6 a can (they had a case discount, but I didn’t see what it was). It is pretty expensive, but I contrast it with the fresh Copper River Salmon that I saw a week ago that was selling for $17 a pound.

My wife and I both performed Google searches on The Blades and Garibaldi Seafood, and were only able to find some minimal information about the company though my wife did find that they offer five different flavors. It looks like we will have to give them a call, and find out where their tuna can be purchased and information about the factory prices in Garibaldi. Until that time, we are back to eating bland Tinkerbelle tuna.

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell