Anchovy

Anchovies (Engraulidae) are found in many of the world’s temperate zones. From Worcestershire sauce to nước mắm, places as different as England and Viet Nam have a history of bashing, mashing and squeezing them into some form of flavour enhancer. That aside, economically as much as gastronomically, the anchovy is foremost a fish of the Mediterranean and its cultural catchment areas: the Iberian Atlantic and the Black Sea. You don’t need special map-reading skills to glimpse the backbone of the Roman Empire through today’s main anchovy production areas. Italy, Spain, Portugal and Türkiye vie for top spot; Greece and Croatia line up behind them.

Silky filetes de anchoa of the Cantabrian Sea, off northern Spain, packed in collectable period tins. Colatura di alici from Italy’s Amalfi coast, heir to the prized Latin extract garum, kept alive through the centuries by Cistercian monks. An anchovy swirl over a dollop of burrata with a side of puntarelle, the curly Roman salad, dressed in an anchovy vinaigrette – all of it then tossed over sourdough pizza. A couple of cured fillets, stirred into olive oil on the hob until they melt to bequeath a warm savouriness, in the way of a scent after its wearer has left. Or a Neapolitan street snack, consisting of a pile of the fish – tiny, whole but for the heads, and fresh rather than filleted and cured – rolled in flour, deep-fried and served in greaseproof paper. The anchovy is ancient and modern; swish and homely; it is, like ripe cheese, both jolting and refined. Salty, no doubt – but no more so than a bag of crisps, and much more nutritious to boot. Anchovy is rich in niacin, an essential B vitamin, and in selenium, which protects against cell damage.

The analogy with cheese is not gratuitous. Anchovy does go with dairy, in a way that a lot of fish doesn’t. This is not to say that haddock, for example, isn’t good steeped in milk, or that canned tuna won’t work well topped with grated cheddar and shoved under the grill. Still, the tiny, feisty anchovies win the versatility contest. Pair them with butter, with cream, with gooey stracciatella or slivers of manchego; with garlic, vinegar, olives and chillies; with pale foils or fiery equals – all make good partners.

Strictly speaking, anchovies fall into well over 100 species, though only six or so register commercially. Differences can be minute: anchovies are universally small and slender; silver in colour, with an occasional greenish tinge; and closely related, in both looks and genetics, to the larger herrings, sardines and pilchards.

Immensely gregarious and, given their diminutive size, low on the marine food chain (almost everyone preys on them), anchovies move in schools so vast and tight as to darken entire portions of the sea. One school that snaked for three days off the beach in La Jolla, California in July 2014 may have been the largest ever observed: untold millions of individuals appeared to form a giant shadow crossing the water’s surface. The school’s presence so close to shore, and in waters so warm, baffled scientists – and it still does. We may, in other words, have been eating anchovies for thousands of years, but we’ve yet to fully unpack their cryptic allure.