Today’s special is tuna! But not any part of the tuna…we are going for the best, the ventresca! In other words, the flesh from the tuna’s belly. This lovely can of Ventresca Tuna in Olive Oil is from the brand Minerva. This brand is brought to us by Fábrica de Conservas – A Poveira, S.A., which officially started its activities in 1938.
Here’s a quick peek of their factory in Póvoa do Varzim, Portugal:
Minerva is “just” one of the many brands produced by this company: Ala-Arriba, Alva, Bela, D’Henry IV, Galleon and Taby, complement A Poveira’s portofolio.
The Minerva labelled products are, in my opinion, quite diversified and have astonishing quality. There are sardines and mackerels with many interesting ingredients such as pickles, curry, oregon, garlic, clove…specialities like sardines, mackerel and codfish roes, different sort of pastes and anchovies…the list is immense and eventually, I’ll get to write about many of them, but today I’m in the mood for some Dolphin-safe tuna.
In the package there’s a drawing of Minerva, the Roman goddess of handicrafts, professions, and arts, which is quite appropriate to represent a traditional product such as Portuguese canned fish. The Minerva goddess is also associated with war, so we can let our imaginations run wild and speculate that she would open a can of these goodies to celebrate a won battle.
“I’ll have the tuna, please.”
Photo:”Minerva” (https://flic.kr/p/3gdnQ1) by Atomische * Tom Giebel / licensed by CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/)
By looking at this package I observe that every piece of information is both in Portuguese as well as in English. As for the chosen colours, it’s not my favourite scheme, but it’s nevertheless, pleasant and somewhat retro.
When taking out the paper wrap, I found a golden can in perfect conditions. Overall, and surely influenced by my personal taste, the Package Presentation earns a robust score of 4 out of 5.
As for Easiness to Open, it’s a 2 out of 5: Minerva would call me weakling, but I don’t have the female warrior body type like she does. After some struggle I could finally see a very good looking tuna belly meat filling up the can. There were (what it looked like) 4 fillets inside, but when taking them out of the can I couldn’t really tell them apart.
The meat was flaky, as it was supposed to be, and the flavour was fresh and light. The olive oil rounded up the experience nicely. Some parts of the meat were, however, a bit too dry.
Overall, I enjoyed this Minerva can of tuna, but from my previous experiences with this brand, my preferences still lie with their other fish products. Nonetheless, give it a try and if you feel like it, tell me/us your own opinion.
Evaluation summary:
- Package presentation (1 very poor – 5 excellent): 4
- Easiness to open (1 very hard – 5 very easy): 2
- Quantity: 4(?) fillets
- Flavour: fresh and light
- Texture: flaky, some parts drier than others
Basic Info:
- Manufacturer: Fábrica de Conservas – A Poveira, S.A.
- Type of Product: canned tuna
- Tasted Product: Minerva – Ventresca Tuna in Olive Oil
- Ingredients (as described in the package): ventresca tuna (66.6%), olive oil (32.7%) and salt.
- Nutritional Information (per 100g of drained product, as described in the package): Energy 878Kj/210Kcal, Proteins 24.9g, Carbohydrates 0g, Fat 12.3g (saturated fatty acids: 1.9g), Salt 1g.
Sources used in this post:
fishintin 
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