I don’t know about you but I don’t eat fish very often anymore, as much as I like it.  Sometimes it seems like everything I want is either threatened with extinction, bad for my body or a blow to my budget.

So it was cause for celebration when I found a great-tasting fish that was easy on my conscience, my health and my bank account.   Who knew that sardines, those oft-maligned little fish, would be so good?

I write about the pleasures of sardines today in the San Jose Mercury News (Story now below).   Although I realize they’re a tough sell in our culture, there’s a reason they’re so popular in Spanish and Italian cuisines. Their deep savor marries well with the bold flavors of garlic, peppers and citrus.

Nate Appleman, the hot young chef of San Francisco’s A16, keeps sardines on his menu all the time.  He appreciates that they are sustainable and local but he’s hooked on their flavor.

Appleman likes to roast sardines in  the restaurant’s wood-fired oven and I included one of his recipes with the story.  It’s a simple technique that delivers vivid flavors and appealing textures.

A more basic recipe is this one I found in Teresa Barrenechea’s “The Basque Table” (Harvard Common Press, 1998, 232pp, $16.95).  The sardines develop a crisp skin and pleasantly moist flesh as they roast in a hot oven.  Minced garlic, parsley and breadcrumbs add nice texture as well as complementary flavors.

Give them a try.  Sardines may well be the perfect fish for our times.

Added on 12/11/2009, after the story disappeared from the Mercury News’ online archives:

SARDINES: A new school of thought
It’s healthy, sustainable, flavorful–what’s not to like?
(San Jose Mercury News, page 1D, June 24, 2009)

Consider the humble sardine:  Low in mercury, high in healthful Omega 3 fatty acids, and abundant once again in the chilly waters of Monterey Bay, it may be the perfect fish for our times.

Sardines are one of the few species that environmentally conscious diners can devour without guilt or serious damage to their budgets.  The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program gives them the green light as a best choice for sustainability.

The surprise for many Americans is how delightful sardines can be when prepared fresh. If your only experience with sardines has been mushy, oily fillets out of a can, you’re in for a treat.

Fresh sardines, straight off the grill with a squeeze of lemon, are milder than you might expect, with meaty flavor, crisp skin and a delicate texture.   The high oil content — the source of all those Omega 3s — gives them a deep savor that holds its own with the bold flavors of garlic, peppers and citrus.

Long a favorite in Mediterranean cuisines, the little silver fish are growing in popularity in Bay Area food circles, where sardines star on the menus of hip restaurants and sell out at farmers markets.

Nate Appleman, this year’s James Beard Rising Star chef, is a big fan, He serves sardines draped atop bruschetta, roasted with green garlic and mint, or tossed with pasta, capers and garlic at his acclaimed San Francisco restaurant, A16.

“Sardines are definitely on our menu in some shape or form all the time,” says Appleman, whose restaurant takes its name from a highway that cuts through southern Italy.  “I serve it raw.  I roast it.  I put it in pasta.  I chop it up and braise it.  I’d say my favorite is just out of the wood oven.”

As much as he loves the full flavor and versatility of sardines, the chef also appreciates the fact that sardines are an environmentally sound product pulled from local waters.

“We’re committed to being as sustainable as possible. Sardines are as sustainable as you can get.  They’re on the bottom of the food chain,” Appleman says.

Early July is the best time to find fresh sardines, whether at farmers markets or at upscale grocers such as Whole Foods.  The next segment of the sardine fishing season begins July 1 and is expected to last only a couple of weeks, according to Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Assoc.

Sometimes commercial boats get a small proportion of sardines out of season as a by-catch when they’re fishing for mackerel, anchovies or squid, but that availability is not predictable.

When fresh sardines are available, Hans Haveman, of H&H Fresh Fish Co. based in Santa Cruz, says he sells 100 to 150 pounds a week at the 10 farmers markets he works between Monterey and Oakland.

He’s always liked sardines and once he started seeing them in restaurants, he decided to try offering them to his customers.   “We just cleaned a bunch,” he says, “and they sold like gangbusters.”

“Personally, I like them with just olive oil on the grill,” Haveman says.  “What I was doing last year, which is a nice recipe, was roasting tomatoes alongside the sardines.”  The roasted tomatoes went into a blender with a little balsamic, good olive oil and salt and pepper to taste to make a bright sauce for the fish.

Fresh sardines aren’t available year-round because the harvest is tightly managed by the federal Pacific Fishery Management Council, which works to forestall a fishery collapse such as the one that finished off Monterey’s formerly thriving cannery industry in the 1950s.  Although the sardine population is known to fluctuate naturally, over fishing was suspected as a factor in the disappearance of the fish from the bay at that time.

The season is divided into three segments spaced from January to September and the 60-some sardine boats working the California coast quickly reach their quota, which is set at a total of 66,000 metric tons this year. Most of the harvest is frozen in bulk and sent overseas for canning, feed for aquaculture, or bait for fish higher on the food chain, such as tuna.  The slender sardines bring as little as 3 cents a pound on the wholesale market,

Kenneth Coale, director of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, hopes to raise the status of the fishery by making sardines more appealing to the average American.   The labs recently bought an off-loading facility at the Central Coast fishing harbor to support the local sardine fleet.  Now Coale is looking for a way to acquire a filleting machine and package cleaned fillets to be sold to consumers in convenient, frozen form.

“The problem is Americans think of sardines as something that’s oily, stinky and comes from a can,” Coale says.  “What we’re trying to do is get Americans to think outside the can.”

A solid domestic market could pay fishermen more per pound so they wouldn’t have to catch so many fish to make a profit, he contends.  That would take a lot of pressure off a fishery that feeds other marine species and birds as well as humans.

“I think we should stop wasting the gift that’s on our doorstep,” Coale says, “And if this makes more sardine eaters out of us, I think that’s great.”