Mediterranean fish soups

Appears in

Published 1998

About

The long oval of shore that surrounds the Mediterranean and its offshoots, the Aegean and Adriatic, seems to have as many fish and seafood soups as peoples. Naturally, these peoples have depended on the sea for their livelihood. The fishermen would make their soups from the cheap fish that were hard to sell and ingredients such as wine that they could carry with them. Over the years, these soups have developed, many of them into full-blown feasts.

Probably the earliest version of a Mediterranean fish soup was similar to that version of kakavia, the prototypic Greek fish soup, described by Diane Kochilas in her book The Food and Wine of Greece. It is little more than fish and seafood with seawater, olive oil, and lemon juice. Today’s kakavia is much like the other seafood soups of the region.