Colatura di alici: Campania's famous fish sauce

Anchovies in Italy are largely split into two separate categories: the word acciughe refers to cured anchovies, which are often cured in salt and then stored in oil, whilst alici are fresh. Fresh anchovies speak for themselves – in Italy they’re often grilled and eaten simply with salt, oil and lemon – but cured anchovies are another thing entirely, used to build depth of flavour in all sorts of different dishes, from ragùs and pasta sauces to risottos or Italian classics such as Bagna cauda and Vitello tonnato. The Campanese fishing village of Cetara is arguably the home of Italy’s very best acciughe, but it’s also home to something even better – a special, semi-fermented fish sauce called ‘colatura di alici’, which comes as a by-product of the curing process.

With its colourful houses and ancient cobbled streets, Cetara is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful villages in all of Italy. But it also has a long history of anchovy fishing and curing that stretches back over 2,000 years. The idea of salt-curing anchovies actually started with the Romans, who used salt as a way to preserve the fish (normally caught between March and August) as a year-round source of protein. They discovered – through salting and stacking the fish in barrels – that the process produced a powerfully flavoured amber liquid, which they called garum. That process is largely the same in Cetara today, only now the liquid is called colatura, or ‘dripping’.

When it comes to flavour, colatura is incredibly complex and deep. The lighter versions have a subtle taste of the sea, but stronger sauces develop all sorts of complex flavours. It's not too dissimilar to the ‘nam pla’ fish sauces of Southeast Asia. Good colatura has a pungent, savoury fish flavour but no overpowering saltiness, and develops all sorts of umami and sweet notes too, almost like a balsamic vinegar.

Despite the vast numbers of acciughe that are produced in Cetara and the surrounding area each year, colatura remains a little-known product simply because it is still only produced in very small quantities – you need forty kilograms of anchovies to create just five litres of the stuff. Although the sauce is better known now, it’s still a real delicacy simply because it is in short supply – the Cetaresi tend to keep this amber nectar to themselves, traditionally giving small bottles to each other as Christmas gifts. A tiny amount escapes Italy each year, so if you see it on a shelf, grab it – you won’t be disappointed.