I order a tuna salad sandwich or a tuna sandwich, but I grew up hearing tuna fish… specifically in reference to the stuff that came in a can.
Both were equally common years ago but over time, “tuna” sans fish has won out… likely because fresh, non canned tuna is very common.
I read an article a while ago that theorized the reason for Americans calling it “tuna fish” was that it rose to prominence as a canned staple good in the 1940s, and many Americans who didn’t live on the coasts had never heard of tuna before. Its light meat, when canned and cooked, was very mild and chicken-y compared with the heavily salted, oily canned fish folks were familiar with, hence both “chicken of the sea” and the precaution of labeling the can with not only tuna, but “fish”.
I think an alternate explanation is probably more likely… the 1919 Oxford English Dictionary describes “Tuna” as an alternative spelling of “tunny”, the old name for the fish (still used in a culinary sense in Britain) … not coincidentally:
Californians would also have been familiar with the other tuna… tuna fruit, the prickly pear.
Possessed of both a fruit and a fish of the same name, distinguishing one from the other when canning fish seems reasonable
The largest canneries of tuna (e.g., the one that ultimately became Chicken of the Sea) were all based in California.
I order a tuna salad sandwich or a tuna sandwich, but I grew up hearing tuna fish… specifically in reference to the stuff that came in a can.
Both were equally common years ago but over time, “tuna” sans fish has won out… likely because fresh, non canned tuna is very common.
I read an article a while ago that theorized the reason for Americans calling it “tuna fish” was that it rose to prominence as a canned staple good in the 1940s, and many Americans who didn’t live on the coasts had never heard of tuna before. Its light meat, when canned and cooked, was very mild and chicken-y compared with the heavily salted, oily canned fish folks were familiar with, hence both “chicken of the sea” and the precaution of labeling the can with not only tuna, but “fish”.
I think an alternate explanation is probably more likely… the 1919 Oxford English Dictionary describes “Tuna” as an alternative spelling of “tunny”, the old name for the fish (still used in a culinary sense in Britain) … not coincidentally:
Californians would also have been familiar with the other tuna… tuna fruit, the prickly pear.
Possessed of both a fruit and a fish of the same name, distinguishing one from the other when canning fish seems reasonable
The largest canneries of tuna (e.g., the one that ultimately became Chicken of the Sea) were all based in California.