Spent the week in Normandy and visited the la belle-iloise canneries that are distributed along the Normandy coast. The family has been hand-prepping sardines in Quiberon since 1932. Four generations, the same small pelagic boats coming back to Port-Maria, the same local distribution strategy. There is a steadiness to it. A house that has decided what it is and continues to be that thing for ninety-four years.

Two of the founding recipes are still available in their canneries and the tin designs are still those Georges Hilliet drew himself. The difference is in the oil. *Saint-Georges Sardines in Olive oil* vs *Sardines in Peanut oil*

The tins opened on a quiet and hot evening. The sardines were tender, soft, almost melted in the mouth. Belle-Iloise's hand and quality is unmistakable in every tin I have opened so far, whatever the preparation method. Both tasted genuinely good. The fish is the fish.

The olive-oil gives you the spicy, green warmth of the south. The peanut-oil is more neutral, a 1932 choice, made when peanut oil was the practical choice for a small Brittany port. Today the peanut-oil tin is priced just 10% under the olive-oil peer. Close enough that affordability can't be the reason it stays in the catalog. What's left holding it there is the tradition.

I prefer the olive oil. For its fatty acid profile, for its taste, for what it does to the fish over time. For the comfort of mind. I think it's the healthier choice. Less omega-6 means less sunburn on a French coast where the sun does not spare you.

Should the brand retire the peanut oil variety and let the *Saint-Georges Sardines in Olive oil* carry on the tradition? Or is there something quietly worth keeping in a recipe that four generations of the same family have chosen to leave alone.

For anyone else who's tasted both, where do you land? Olive oil only, peanut oil for the nostalgia, or both with no apology?

Sardines in peanut oil, still worth it?