Tuna vs Tuna Fish

So for some reason Logo decided to skip airing Drag Race last week, so don’t hound me saying that I’m a week behind AGAIN. The latest episode instead aired today, and tomorrow the episode should be available online, which means I can screenshot it and I promise I’ll get my recap up on the blog in a timely fashion. But for the time being, let’s talk tuna.

Yes, tuna.

Where most balanced people consider breakfast as their most important meal, I skip it completely. I also usually skip lunch, which makes my biggest meal dinner, which in turn is followed by an overnight meal. Kinda like a midnight snack but it’s about 3x bigger and well past midnight. Taco Bell dubbed this as ‘fourthmeal’ in a late-2000s ad campaign, but I invented it first. Too bad I never took them to court =P. So I just finished my overnight meal for today, er… tonight with a can of tuna. I personally eat it straight out of the can, by straining the water and drenching it in lemon juice. It sounds schvomega and sometimes it can be if you happen to get a bad can, but tonight it was an absolutely lovely end to my eclectic overnight meal, which tonight also included cinnamon waffles, beef barley soup and a beer. (And would you believe I weigh under 140lbs? I love it!)

Bumble Bee brand solid white albacore is my personal favorite, as it usually finds itself on sale. Though that claim of being ‘solid white’ can be questionable from can to can… Anyway, technically it can be called canned albacore, and I don’t know why the tuna companies don’t capitalize more on the official name. ‘Albacore’ sounds so posh and upscale compared to ‘tuna,’ tell me why there haven’t been a handful of pushy ad campaigns declaring the death of tuna and the rise of albacore. It would at least give us misguided Americans clarification on what exactly to call this food, because we can’t universally decide how to casually refer to it.

Depending on who you ask, one will call it tuna, canned tuna, solid white albacore (yeah right), or tuna fish. I bet it’s a regional thing, but I personally refer to it as tuna fish as do many others. Not only that, but I consider tuna and tuna fish as two completely different preparations of the same animal.

This is tuna fish. A small, squat can with hacked up tuna pieces inside. Most people use this in recipes, notably salads and sandwiches. But like I said, just get me a can opener, lemon juice and a fork and I’m good to go. The Feast of Paupers.

This is tuna. Anytime it is not in that signature-size can, and it’s in a solid steak piece, it’s a fish just like any other. Though I can manage with the can variety, clearly this is preferable (that picture looks delicious). The downsides are the higher price and the smaller portion size. I’m not sure if the portion size is true, but I’ve always found tuna fish to last a lot longer meal-wise than a tuna steak. The Feast of Kings.

So there’s your difference. Tuna fish is cheap, convenient and iconic. Tuna is more expensive, more of a ‘meal’ than an ingredient, and indulgent. It’s like a salmon or a tilapia, only it’s tuna. You would not put tuna in a tuna salad, nor would you order tuna fish in a high-end seafood restaurant. Understand? 

It still doesn’t explain why the redundant term ‘tuna fish’ is used rather than something else for the canned variety, and I really don’t have an answer for you. It does have a nice ring to it, as it’s two four-letter, one-syllable words put together, and some people compound it into a single word itself. ‘Tuna fish’ just works, and that’s why it’s said, that’s it.

Thus ends our discussion about overnight meals and tuna fish, at least for now. This is merely a preview of where this blog will turn once the Drag Race reaches the finish line, so get prepared for some real irreverent discussion about life and the sick sad society we live with, right down to the minutia. Oh it’s gonna be fun.