José Gourmet Ventresca: The Tuna Belly in the Illustrated Tin

José Gourmet sells its tuna on the tin as much as on the fish. The ventresca, the belly cut, comes in a tin illustrated by André Letria, with a short text by Eugénio Roda and two recipes credited to Luís Baena: one written for children, one for a dinner table. The fillets beside it carry an illustration by Yara Kono and the same writer and recipe author. It is the same producer whose sardines in Azores butter have their own page on the Dispatch, and its tuna line is small: two tins of fish and three pâtés. The tins say a good deal about who drew them and how to cook from them, and much less about the fish inside.

Who José Gourmet is

The company explains its name on its concept page: "JOSÉ é 'aquele que acrescenta'," José is "the one who adds." It describes the work as adding value, material and immaterial, and widening the link between good production and the people who eat it. It also says it keeps "uma relação honesta com os nossos fornecedores e os nossos clientes," an honest relationship with its suppliers and its customers. The tagline across the site is "Seafood of distinction. Fair Trade." The same page says the tins are made from recycled materials and meant to be kept as objects, and it names Luis Mendonça as designer and art director.

The illustrations are what set the tins apart. The company's illustrators page lists more than fifty artists, among them André Letria, Yara Kono, Madalena Matoso, Bernardo Carvalho and João Vaz de Carvalho. Each tin in the range carries its own credited illustrator, which is why a shelf of José Gourmet looks more like a row of book covers than a row of cans. Its press page goes back to 2010. The site gives no founding year and names no founder.

The ventresca

Ventresca is the belly of the tuna, a fattier cut than the loin. José Gourmet puts it in one sentence: "A ventresca concentra maior gordura, uma textura mais cremosa e mais rica no paladar," the belly holds more fat and has a creamier texture and a richer flavor.

A loin fillet tends to flake into firm, dense pieces. Belly tends to come apart in softer layers, and more of its fat ends up in the olive oil in the tin. That makes the oil worth keeping, and the producer's dinner recipe puts it to work. The piece on what to do with the oil left in a tin has more uses for it.

The producer's two recipes

The ventresca page includes both recipes, and they stretch the belly across a wide range. The children's recipe, Maionatum, is a potato salad: 200 grams of diced potatoes cooked and cooled, mixed with a can of corn and black olives, dressed with mayonnaise and ketchup, and topped with two tins of the belly. The dinner recipe is a mil folhas, a millefeuille of puff pastry baked at 210°C and layered with a paste of four heads of roasted garlic loosened with the tin's oil, cornichons and sliced belly. Cherry tomatoes confited at 150°C with sugar, salt, garlic and olive oil go alongside. One recipe treats ventresca as lunchbox tuna, the other as the centerpiece.

The fillets

The tuna fillets in olive oil are the everyday tin. Of the two tins, only the fillets page says where the fish was caught: "Capturado nas zonas oriental e ocidental do Atlântico e no sudeste do Pacífico," caught in the eastern and western Atlantic and the southeast Pacific. The text opens with a line of history, "A descoberta do mar pelo homem Pré-histórico coincidiu com a descoberta do atum," prehistoric people discovered tuna when they discovered the sea. It does not name the species. The recipes on this page are massatovas for children and vitello tonnato for adults. Vitello tonnato is veal served with a sauce of blended tuna, and it is a good job for a fillet tin, because the fish gets blended and firm loin is all it needs.

What the pages say, and what they do not

Four questions decide what is in a tuna tin, and José Gourmet's pages answer them unevenly. The tinned fish label guide covers the rest of the back label.

Species matters most, because the FDA and EPA advice on eating fish sorts tuna by species. Canned light tuna, including skipjack, is on the "Best Choices" list. Albacore (white tuna) and yellowfin are "Good Choices." Bigeye is on the list of "Choices to Avoid." For people who are pregnant or breastfeeding, the agencies suggest two to three 4-ounce servings a week from the best list or one serving from the good list. The belly comes from the same fish as the loin, so its tier depends on the species, not the cut. Anyone who needs that tier should read the species on the back of the tin before buying. The piece on whether tinned fish is healthy puts tuna beside the other species.

The five tuna tins, side by side

Choose the fillets for cooking and mixing, the ventresca for eating as it is, and the pâtés when the tin goes straight onto bread. The fillets and the belly also make a good two-tin tasting. Open both, taste each on plain bread, and the difference in fat shows in one bite. For a larger lineup, the method is in how to host a tinned fish tasting.

Where it sits on the shelf

José Gourmet sits with the other Portuguese houses in the tinned fish guide, and the background on the country's canning tradition is in Portugal's conservas. Tuna and white beans are a familiar pairing, and the method for the beans is in how to cook heirloom beans. Storage and how long an opened tin keeps are covered in the tinned tuna answers page. The tins are at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com.

Sources & Further Reading

• José Gourmet: Ventresca de Atum em Azeite (product text, illustration credit, recipes)
• José Gourmet: Filetes de Atum em Azeite (catch areas, illustration credit, recipes)
• José Gourmet: Conceito (the company's concept, packaging and fair trade statement)
• José Gourmet: Ilustradores (the illustrators behind the tins)
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency: Advice About Eating Fish (tuna tiers by species)