The Mediterranean is exhausted. During the 19th century, Italy not only doubled its population, the techno-industrial revolution also reached the seas, and new fishing tackle and systems brought the Mar Nostrum fishing grounds against the ropes. anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) was insufficient, and the large canneries in Genoa, Naples and Sicily began to look for an alternative.

“A little Italy” but in the Bay of Biscay. Spain was certainly not the first choice. For years the Italians settled in the regions of southern Portugal, Tunisia or Algeria in search of new fishing grounds. However, the results were not satisfactory.

“While an Italian diplomat from a consular career was visiting the Bay of Biscay, […] He observed the abundance and quality of anchovies and the low interest of locals in anchovy. He came in contact with some Genoese salting workers and the first expeditions to the northern coast of the Peninsula began.

Between the 1880s and 1920s, thousands of Italians arrived at the ports of Bermeo, Laredo or Santoña. At first it was about technical personnel who come and go every year (and spend only four months in the Bay of Biscay). But things changed as the salting industry grew and personal relationships deepened.

Anchovy: a love story. It has actually changed a lot. Salting is an ancient practice associated with the sea and the preservation of fisheries. However, at that time the entire Italian industry was focused on catching anchovies, anchovies or anchovies and preparing them whole in salt.

In other words, to eat them, you had to clean them at home and eat them skinless and boneless, plain or with butter. This had obsessed Giovanni Vella Scaliota for years. wage from the prestigious Neapolitan firm Angelo Parodi. But the life of the salt workers was not easy: the constant commuting from one port to another.

Around 1881 or 1882 Vella fell in love with Dolores, a young woman from Santoña. This small detail led to the end of his travel life and the permanent settlement of Sicilians in Cantabria. There, with the time between seasons, he began to try something new: Couldn’t the cleaning be done at the factory and pre-cleaned anchovy fillets available to the final consumer?

How to revolutionize one of the world’s oldest industries? The idea was simple, but its implementation was far from trivial. If saltfish hadn’t gotten to this point after thousands of years of intense development… there would have been a reason. It took a lot of work (and a lot of experimentation) to find a methodology that could be used effectively with the technology of the day. As before, it wasn’t just a matter of picking and brining the fish: they had to be processed very delicately in order for it to be ready for people to eat at home.

So, now they had to be decapitated and manually internalized. Next, they had to be placed in barrels (layers of sprinkled salt and anchovies) where they were pressed to slowly dry the anchovies. And then, you had to wait at least six months. This was the easy part because it didn’t involve any real innovation. That’s pretty much what has been done so far.

The skin had to be removed, run through several hot water baths, dried with a cloth, and cleaned by hand (removing the central bone, removing the fillets, and removing the bones). Finally, put them in oil (or butter with capers) and seal the cans so that they are perfectly preserved.

Fish is written with an ‘i’ for Iberian. The idea caused an earthquake in the entire saltfish industry and, moreover, gave Cantabrian communities a major impetus to transform fisheries into an industrial business with international weight. Before refrigeration technology was available, the Italo-Spanish synthesis of the Cantabrian Sea caused the most significant revolution since the encounter of salted cod fish production between Portugal and the Vikings.

in DAP | How are anchovy, anchovy and bocarte different?

Image | Inigo De La Maza