As I've mentioned here before, I like tuna sandwiches…and I like mine simple. You mix tuna with Miracle Whip or mayo, you slather it on bread and that's it. No lettuce. No relish. No little chunks of celery to ruin the texture. If just the tuna, dressing and bread aren't enough for you, you're doing something wrong.
The tuna I buy is Star Kist Chunk Light Tuna packed in sunflower oil and in those little foil packets. I am informed that tuna in foil packets is better than tuna in cans for the following reason. The packaged tuna we buy at the market is cooked in its packaging. Canned tuna is cooked in its can. Because the foil packets flatten the tuna out to a uniform thickness, the tuna cooked in them cooks evenly, whereas the tuna cooked in cans is more cooked on the outside and less cooked on the inside. At least, this what I've been told. I mainly like the foil packets because you don't have to drain them.
In L.A., it is quite easy to find Star Kist Chunk Light packed in water, not as easy to find it in the oil, which I prefer. I never found out why but there was a period a year or two ago when you couldn't find it anywhere. Now, you can. Near the end of that drought, when I did find a source for it, I bought about sixty packages. I knew I had plenty of time to use it up because of the expiration date stamped on the package…
Product of Ecuador
Best by 12 10 13.
Now, notice it doesn't say it'll go bad on December 11, 2013. It just says it's best by the day before. I will not be testing this because at the rate I use this stuff up, I'm almost out of 60 packages I bought more than a year ago.
Today, I stopped in a Von's Market and they had it in stock. I bought a dozen packages, took them home and put them in the cupboard with the last few packages from the old stash. Before I did, I decided to consult the expiration date on these and look what I found there…
Product of Ecuador
Best by 12 10 13.
In other words, this batch is from the same time and place as the batch I bought a year or two ago. I could have bought 72 packages back then and saved myself the purchase today at Von's. I would have gotten the exact same tuna.
I guess this stuff keeps…which is amazing because it seems to have no real preservatives in it. When something has a shelf life like this, you figure it's going to be pumped full of Sodium Benzoate or Calcium Propionate or other substances I probably had in my old Gilbert Chemistry Set when I was a lad. But the ingredients on this tuna package are light tuna, sunflower oil, water, vegetable broth and salt.
So my question is: Did the Star Kist people just buy a few year's supply of fish from Ecuador one day? Naw, that can't be it. This tuna wasn't just caught at the same time. If two packages have the same expiration date, they must have been processed on the same date. Maybe it was Von's Market that bought tons of it…but how could Star Kist have packaged that much at one time?
I dunno. I'm just thinking that when I get to be around 80, I may have myself encased in one of these thin foil pouches. They're really good at keeping things fresh.