Canned salmon simmered with onion into a peppery, brothy stew, ladled over rice or grits or sopped with bread. The breakfast-for-supper of the pantry, built from a can and an onion.
Canned salmon was an affordable, shelf-stable protein that fed Black families through the Depression and every lean stretch since. Salmon stew and salmon patties are the two great expressions of that can — supper made from the cabinet when the money or the fresh food ran short, and beloved enough to outlast the hard times.
Canned salmon — eaten with its soft, edible bones — is one of the most nutritious cheap foods in the Black pantry: rich in omega-3s for heart and brain, vitamin D for immunity and bone health (a near-universal deficiency in Black Americans), and the bones deliver real calcium. B12 and selenium round it out. A stew built on this can, with onion and minimal salt, is a genuinely protective meal made from shelf-stable food.
Sweat sliced onion in a little fat, add a can of salmon (bones and liquid included, lightly flaked), a splash of water or milk, and pepper, and simmer gently into a loose stew. Don't break the salmon to mush. Serve over rice or grits, or with hot cornbread to sop.
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