Bumble Bee Seafood Co.’s “Marvelous Meals in Minutes” offers recipes using canned tuna and salmon.

Bumble Bee Seafood Co. has long been a household name on the Oregon Coast.

The company began in 1899 as the Columbia River Packers Association, formed from seven canners with a goal to efficiently fish and process salmon in the area.

As the Columbia River Packers Association expanded, its marketing team created new labels that customers could identify with, including the Bumble Bee Seafood Co. brand in the 1910s. Soon, pamphlets promoting Bumble Bee products could be found across the Northwest.

“Marvelous Meals in Minutes,” a cookbook believed to have been published sometime in the 1960s, features inspiring seafood recipes and also “the love story of Bumble Bee salmon.”

This love story walks the reader through the Chinook salmon’s life along the Columbia River, from his humble origin deep in the freshwater river to his adventures in the Pacific Ocean, where “he will learn to feed on shrimps, smelt and other tasty morsels of ocean life, rich in vitamins, iodine, salts and mineral food value.”

The Chinook salmon’s journey ends with his courageous return to the river, where he originally hatched. He finds his mate, fertilizes their eggs, and after his death, his remains provide nutrients back into the ecosystem.

The salmon’s story concludes with, “This is the Royal King Chinook that, when taken at the mouth of the Columbia, fresh from the ocean, is the finest salmon in the world, the Bumble Bee salmon. No other salmon compares with them in flavor, in texture of their firm, tender flesh, in the richness of their oil, in nutritious food value, or in natural salmon color.”

Bumble Bee Seafood Co.’s pamphlet offers a variety of salmon, crab, shrimp and tuna recipes to try, so I recreated the brand’s tuna shortcake.

Tuna shortcake

Serves four, ready in 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 cup packaged biscuit mix

• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

• 1/3 cup milk (for biscuits)

• One can of condensed cream of celery

soup

• 1/2 cup milk (for sauce)

• 1 teaspoon grated onion

• One 6.5- or 7-ounce can Bumble Bee

tuna, drained and separated into large pieces

• 1 cup cooked peas

• 1 tablespoon chopped pimiento

Preparation

Combine biscuit mix and cheese. Add 1/3 cup milk and stir lightly until the ingredients are just mixed. Drop by tablespoon into four biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake in a hot oven at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10 minutes, or until biscuits are baked and browned.

Blend soup, 1/2 cup milk and onion. Carefully stir in the tuna, peas and pimiento, and heat thoroughly. Serve the tuna mixture over split hot cheese biscuits.

This recipe gets bonus points for being so simple to make. Especially with an instant biscuit mix, Bumble Bee was spot on when they said the recipe takes 20 minutes from start to finish.

The directions did not include any spices. The combination of cream of celery soup, pimiento, peas and tuna gave off a mellow pea soup flavor.

Unfortunately, peas aren’t my favorite food, but overall the soup ladled over the cheddar biscuits was pleasant. I could see this being a simple but satisfying dish for lunch with friends. This historic recipe — and more from Bumble Bee Seafood Co. — can be found at the Ted M. Natt Maritime Library.