I met Ali during one of my trips to San Francisco. While I had been working on Blue Cove for about a year at that point, she had just been discovered as a new authority in guiding her audience through the world of gourmet canned seafood. I was amazed by her ability to capture viewers on Tiktok, by explaining how to navigate, serve and enjoy the various offerings available on the market. She meticulously creates videos that bring viewers into the experience of eating a type of food that traditionally has not been easily approachable. She was describing all the right ways to eat it, and it resonated with me because I grew up in a culture that considers tinned seafood to be a premium, gourmet food category - I write about a brasserie in Paris that ages cans of sardines and presents them on the food menu detailing the vintage year, just like wine. The sommelier is in charge of aging them and calls them "the treasures of the wine cellar".
On her Tiktok account, Ali was doing all the right educational work, showing and teaching a quickly growing audience about the pleasures of great canned seafood. She lays them out on a table and serves them just like a charcuterie and cheese board, or finds great ways to pair with other foods/flavors. In this video Ali opens a box of crackers, spreads a thin layer of labneh on them and adds chunks of Blue Cove branzino topped with capers and a finishing touch of black lime salt.
<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@alihooke/video/7271344738559724842" data-video-id="7271344738559724842" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;" > <section> <a target="_blank" title="@alihooke" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@alihooke?refer=embed">@alihooke</a> Blue Cove tinned branzino <a title="tinfish" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/tinfish?refer=embed">#tinfish</a> <a title="tinnedfishtok" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/tinnedfishtok?refer=embed">#tinnedfishtok</a> @Blue Cove <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - Ali" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7271344739847392043?refer=embed">♬ original sound - Ali</a> </section> </blockquote> <script async src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script>
You can find more mouth watering content on Ali’s TikTok account, she’s also been featured in Food & Wine, Time Magazine and WSJ.