How to clean and prepare sardines

“Semolina pilchard / Climbing up the Eiffel Tower / Elementary penguin singing hare krishna / Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.”

That’s from The Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus.” I bet walruses love nothing more than a fresh pilchard — another name for our Pacific sardine, a small member of the herring family. John Lennon, who penned these lyrics, might also have been referring to a favorite dinner item. Or maybe he just was playing with words to make the rhythm he wanted. That was John.

Now here’s good news for all the walruses out there, of which I am one. The mid-summer catch of fresh sardines was scheduled to arrive in the first week or two of July at our markets, according to the staff at Santa Rosa Seafood on Santa Rosa Avenue (check for availability by calling them at 707-579-2085).

Pacific sardines aren’t those little headless brisling sardines packed with olive oil into flat pull-tab cans. Our fresh sardines run between 8 and 10 inches long or more and are usually sold as they came from the fishing nets — meaning you have to clean and prepare them for cooking.

How to clean sardines

It’s simple to do. Lay the fish belly up and slice it down the middle from the tail end up to the head. Scrape out the entrails with your finger and rinse the fish under cold water, then pat it dry with a dish towel. A sharp twist and tug and the head pulls off easily. Discard it or feed it to your cat, if the picky little eater will have it. Or you can leave it on to remind you of life’s inescapable fate.

Now lay the fish belly up and push the sides flat to expose the spine running the length of the fish. Grasp the spine from the head end of the fish and gently lift it up and out, bringing most of the bones with it. Sardines are bony and you won’t remove them all, so just eat carefully.

Sardines are also oily and can smell fishy, so many people marinate them for a couple hours in the fridge before cooking. I use a marinade made with 3 or 4 minced garlic cloves, ¼ cup of good olive oil, ¼ cup of lemon juice, a heaping teaspoon of smoked paprika, ½ teaspoon of Dijon mustard, a pinch of salt and a grind or 2 of fresh black pepper, all whisked together.

Lay the cleaned and deboned filets in the bottom of a small bowl and pour the marinade over them. Turn them to coat. Refrigerate, turning them once or twice during the 2 hours they’ll be marinating.

Declining catch

Many of us have visited the old Cannery Row in Monterey, which now is repurposed with shops, restaurants and the world-class Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The canneries stopped operating in 1968. That’s because the golden age of Pacific sardines stretched from the 1930s, when they were nutritious, ubiquitous and cheap, to WWII, when tons of sardines fed our troops at war.

In the 12 seasons from 1934 to 1946, the canneries processed 600,000 tons of sardines each season. State biologists warned that sardine populations couldn’t sustain removals over 250,000 tons, but the fishing industry and War Department resisted any attempt to install a quota. As John Steinbeck wrote at the time, “The canneries themselves fought the war by getting the limit taken off fish and catching them all. It was done for patriotic reasons.”

From 1946 to 1952, fisheries hauled in about 230,00 tons of sardines a year. From 1953 through 1962, the catch was just over 55,000 tons a year. The last five seasons it was 24,000 tons. And as one fisherman who took part in the last season of 1968 said, “In the last year, we caught them all in one night.”

Author Randall Reinstedt, in his 1978 book, “Where Have All the Sardines Gone?,” estimated that there were enough sardines in those catches from 1934 to 1968 that, if the fish were laid end to end, they would reach to the moon and back.

Grilled Pacific Sardines

Smaller fish, less than 8 inches, are sweeter, less oily and less fishy. The larger sardines are oilier and have a more pronounced fishy flavor. The oil, by the way, is an omega-3 — very nutritious and health-promoting, as are all the minerals and proteins in this species.

Grilling is always the best way to cook them, and that’s just right for the July catch, although sardines spawn in several waves over the year, producing surges of fresh sardines throughout the seasons. Use a wire mesh screen over the grill so the fish don’t slip down between the bars.

Brush the fish with the marinade or use olive oil, lemon juice and salt just before you put them on the grill. Either way works fine. Use a hot grill and cook the fish for about 2 minutes, give or take, per side. They cook quickly. Look where the spine was removed. If the flesh is whitish and opaque, it’s done. Serve hot.