Fish & Seafood

Appears in

Recipes from Paradise: Life and Food on the Italian Riviera

Published 1997

About

While liguria is a famously coastal region, it does not benefit from the same rich waters that one finds near Sicily, or the Atlantic coasts of Spain, France, Norway, Iceland, Canada, and the United States, or the Pacific coasts of North and South America, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. The waters near Liguria have historically been rather poor, and the problem has only compounded in recent years as demand for fish has risen and portions of the Mediterranean have become polluted.

However, the clever Ligurians have always made the best of what they had, and found additional sources of fish further afield. The first thing to understand about Ligurian fish cookery is that they have mastered the use of pesce azzurro (which would translate inaccurately into English as “blue fish”). These are, in fact, the small fish such as anchovies and sardines that have blue or silver scales. These fish are eaten fresh in Liguria as often as they are preserved. In their fresh form they bear no resemblance to the strong-flavored salty fish that we think of coming in tubes or cans that can be opened with a key.