Anchovies are amongst Italy’s favourite fish. They’re often indiscriminately referred to as alici or acciughe, two words defining the same thing, even though the former should technically refer to the fillets preserved in vegetable oil and the latter the whole fish, usually packed in salt.
Tasty, cheap (at least in their fresh version) and healthy, they belong to the so-called ‘pesce azzurro’ (blue fish) category thanks to the silver-blue hue of their skin, and are also known as oily fish due to the high content of fat in their flesh. Abundant throughout the Mediterranean Sea, they used to be a staple in the humble fisherman’s diet on both shores of the Italian peninsula. According to experienced fishermen, anchovies caught in the Tyrrhenian Sea are bigger, leaner and have plumper meat, while the Adriatic ones are more delicate.
Today, anchovies are fished and processed in many seaside towns along the entirety of the Italian coastline; they are considered an exquisite food, especially in their preserved state, every bit as good as the famous Cantabrian varieties from Spain. Some of the products made from the fish are just as excellent, for example the famous colatura di alici (anchovy sauce) made in Cetara: an intense fish-flavoured liquid obtained by the pressing and fermenting of salted anchovies. Its origins are in the garum, a dressing used by the Ancient Romans to add taste and aroma to many recipes.
In the northeast of Italy, especially in the Venetian lagoons and nearby, sardines – a similar fish, yet bigger and stockier with a slightly different taste – are more common; often mistaken with anchovies, they are cooked in saor, with pickled onions.
Here are some of the most renowned Italian anchovies and the traditional ways they are prepared and used in recipes.