Pissala

The anchovies in a bagna caouda were once (and perhaps somewhere still are) replaced by a paste, called pissala, made by layering gutted and beheaded baby anchovies and sardines with salt, cloves, bay leaves, thyme, and lots of pepper and stirring the mixture every day for a month before working it through a drum sieve to eliminate bones. (The resulting mixture sounding suspiciously similar to the garum, a condiment popular in ancient Rome.) The Niçoise-style pizza called pissaladière gets its name from pissala because in original versions the dough was spread with pissala before the onions were added. I’m not giving a recipe for pissala because it requires baby anchovies and sardines of impeccable freshness, which can be hard to find even in France. But a recipe can be found in Jacques Médicin’s book, which has been translated into English, Cuisine Niçoise.