Credits: Article and images by Ken Gargett @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2024/08/18/in-praise-of-anchovies-if-you-dont-already-love-them-you-just-havent-yet-discovered-how-good-they-can-be-2/
—————————————————————————————————–
What is an anchovy?
As with so many things, there are anchovies and anchovies, although truth be told the budget rarely allows me to dip into the really good stuff and mostly I use the basic offerings from the supermarket – they work well enough most of the time, but there come occasions when you need better.
Think of anchovies like wine. Most days, a good-value decent bottle full of flavor is more than enough. But sometimes, you just need to crack the good stuff.
So what is an anchovy? The fish, not the town. Yes, there is a town in Jamaica called Anchovy, though it appears to have no connection to the fish.
A school of anchovies (photo courtesy Geoff Shester/Oceana)
Basically, anchovies are small fish that we think of as baitfish. Preyed on by almost anything/everything else in the sea. The anchovy is crucial to the ecosystem of the oceans. Most are marine based, but a few can enter fresh or brackish water. There are apparently more than 140 species (144 from 17 genera), and they are found around the globe: the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, and the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans for starters.
The range tends to the temperate seas, avoiding very cold or very warm seas. For the boffins among us, almost all commercial anchovies come from the family Engraulidae and the genus Engraulis (I hope that helps). In length, they go from about two to 40 centimeters.
They are described as having tiny, sharp teeth and have a “unique rostral organ,” but its use is not clearly understood as yet. They eat even smaller fish and plankton. Spawning is believed to take place around 100 kilometers from land, a long journey for such a small fish.
Anchovies provide food for a wide range of predators, obviously larger fish but also a variety of birds and marine mammals. They are also often used by fishermen as bait for larger fish.
Peruvian anchovies provide the vast majority of the commercial catch around the world (nearly 70 percent), with Japanese anchovies next (almost 20 percent), followed by European anchovies. Southern African and Californian anchovies form a much smaller part of the catch.
The Peruvian anchovy industry is the perfect example of the dangers of overfishing. In the early 1970s the industry collapsed in a massive way, and it took several decades for it to recover.
Once caught, anchovies are traditionally processed by gutting and salting in brine to cure them before packing in more salt or oil. They have long played a crucial role in various fish sauces, back to the Roman days when they were fermented as garum (I had intended to cover the story of fish sauce for this piece, but reality struck – it would end up being the War and Peace of fish articles, in length at least). That role is still important today.
It is the curing process that accentuates the strong taste of anchovies. Caught and cooked/grilled fresh, they are much milder. The anchovies that attract the highest prices are those from the Gulf of Trieste at Sirocco. They are prized for their “white fleshy” character.
One reason for loving anchovies is that they are so important when it comes to adding that “umami flavor” to cooking. Fish sauce, essential.
That bottle of Worcestershire sauce in your cupboard (yes, we all have it)? A key ingredient is anchovies – you didn’t think it was vegan, did you? Anchovies are chockers with umami-producing glutamates. Clever cooks have known for years that a fillet or two minced into beef dishes gives it that extra richness.
And what would your Bloody Mary be without anchovies? Yes, go back to the Worcestershire sauce.
—————————————————————————————————–
Credits: Article and images by Ken Gargett @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2024/08/18/in-praise-of-anchovies-if-you-dont-already-love-them-you-just-havent-yet-discovered-how-good-they-can-be-2/
