ANCHOVY SAUCE

Colatura di alici (anchovy sauce), also a Slow Food Presidium, is an amber-coloured liquid obtained by processing anchovies that have been salted. The fish used for this food process are fished from May to July. After being cleaned, they are immediately put into terzigni, the traditional wooden barrels used to preserve anchovies. It takes a few months to obtain this particular liquid, in fact the colatura will not be ready until December, in fact it is in the middle of the month that the Festa della Colatura di Alici is held in this area.

Colatura di alici di Cetara is a by-product of the preservation and production of anchovies. It is a product that requires experience and patience, two qualities that belong only to artisanal and certainly not industrial production.

The history of colatura is very old, it seems to derive from garum, an ancient condiment already used in Classical Greece and according to local tradition it is also linked to the monastic life of the monastery of San Pietro in Toczolo, a small village on the Amalfi Coast. It was these monks who, after fishing, cleaned the anchovies and placed them in layers with coarse salt in large wooden barrels to preserve them throughout the winter.

The excess liquid produced by soaking the fish in salt, which was deposited and dripped onto the bottom of the barrel, was very fragrant and one day the monk in charge of the kitchen decided to recover it and use it to season some vegetables. This was the beginning of the history of colatura di alici as a very tasty and salty liquid sauce, particularly popular right from the start in the local cuisine as a dressing for simple dishes and pasta, and which has now become an ingredient of excellence appreciated all over the world.