To be 100% honest, not all of us were excited to try our fish-in-a-can options from Cole’s Trout. Yes, there were those who appreciate these things. But there are others who have been taught to expect oily, smelly fish to emerge from any pocket-sized metal container.

So last night when we were scouring a bare cupboard for a snack to accompany a glass of Ebner Ebenauer Gruner Veltliner 2007, we looked leerily at the tin. Noticing we had a box of our new organic table water crackers on hand, we decided to take a chance. Coles chooses sustainably farmed and caught fish and packs them in olive oil and sea salt, so how bad could it be? Cracked open the container. No fishy smell, good so far. Stuck a fork in. The trout flaked apart instead of holding together like fish jerky. Ok, that’s not bad. Placed a few flakes on a cracker. The olive oil drained off and didn’t cling like an oil tanker spill to a cormorant. We’re growing more hopeful. Then the taste – delicate . . . trout-y without too much wood taste from the applewood smoke. And a delicious complement to the Gruner. We ended up finishing the trout (2 servings per container? Hah!), cracking open the line-caught mackeral and eating half of that. We hear that a staff favorite is the escabeche trout . . . and now we’re dying to try it.