Looking at a map of Galicia it is really easy to see why the sea is such an important part of Galicians’ lives. With a coastline of almost nine-hundred-and-thirty-five miles, more than an eighth of Spain’s total coastline, large numbers of Galicians have, since records first began, lived off the sea and more often than not, on it for long periods of time. While the men fished, the women stayed onshore and mended nets, cleaned and gutted the fish and packed it for sale. As with all fresh products, the problem with fish was how to preserve it and the traditional way across the whole of Europe was salt. This meant that inland regions of Spain like Aragón had, as long as six-hundred years ago, fish such as dried eel from Galicia as a staple.

It wasn’t until the 19th century that Galicia’s fishing industry really expanded using the cutting-edge industrial technique of canning. The origins of canning started when Napoleon, faced with starving troops during his Russian campaign, offered an award of 12,000 francs for anyone who could find a method to preserve food. Pastry chef Nicolas Appert found in 1803 that heating hermetically sealed food at a high temperature was a great preservation method and by 1810, Middlesex merchant Peter Durand had registered a patent for the method. It took thirty years of more refining and research into canning techniques until it arrived in Galicia but in 1840 the first canning factory was opened preserving small game birds, closely followed by another in Illa de Arousa canning fish.

The Galician fish and seafood canning industry expanded quickly and by 1904 the port of Vigo had gone from having seven canning factories to more than eighty, canning mostly sardines. Today canning in Galicia directly employs nearly 15,000 people, mostly in small family run businesses, and represents about eighty-five percent of the whole Spanish fish preserving industry. One of the most immediately noticeable things about the industry is that the factory work is mostly done by women, in keeping with the old traditions of women staying ashore while men went to sea. Prices vary greatly depending on the levels of automation in the process and the quality of the seafood; carefully packed hand-picked Queen scallops, or highly prized tuna belly will cost a lot more than sardines packed using automated machines. Spaniards often seek out small artisanal brands for something truly special.