Nonna Rosa Vella’s Livornese Fish Stew

This Tuscan seafood stew used to be made by poor fishermen as a way to utilize fish that didn’t sell. Nonna Rosa remembers her trips as a girl to the mercato centrale in Livorno, where her mother would send her and her sisters to buy fish for a cacciucco that would feed their family of ten. “They were all fishes you don’t see too much today. Palombo, gallinella, pesce prete, cicale. Maybe we didn’t appreciate them then because they were all we had, but