Conservas Braseadsas Güeya Mar
Güeyu Mar, which hit the U.S. market in December (full list of retailers here), is not like other conservas companies you may have heard about. While most traditional canneries steam their seafood before packing it in water or oil, Güeyu Mar goes primal, cooking its sardines, cockles, squid, what have you, over live oakwood flame. This step imbues each morsel with an intoxicating smokiness that, to me, evokes sunny Mediterranean seafood shacks and pre-pandemic beach barbecues.
Once the seafood is cooked, it’s either drenched in thick green arbequina olive oil from Castillo de Canena and sealed, or destined for meal-in-a-can wonders like sardines in escabeche (garlicky vinaigrette) or that blissfully chthonic squid, which Güeyu Mar dubs calamares de otro planeta (squid from another planet). I always have a few Güeyu Mar cans in the cupboard for when hunger strikes—and motivation doesn’t.
If these cans sound very chef-y (and more expensive) than most, that’s because they are: Güeyu Mar is named for a well-known seafood restaurant in Playa de la Vega, Asturias. Its chef, Abel Álvarez, makes no compromises when it comes to quality of ingredients, and that approach applies to his tins as well.