Cookery

The Menaica's anchovies

The first constructions were the "magazzeni", ground premises digged in part in the cliff and often equipped of water sink, and with the typical arclike income. They were used from the fishermen like boats and fishing equipements shelters and expecially used for salting and mature the anchovies.

Here the anchovies were arranged in the "trezzarole", (troughs of chestnut tree wood), covered with a piece of wood and pressate with large stones of sea, with wisdom and ability of the women of Pisciotta in salting and maturing.

The fishing of the anchovies occurs with the "menaica", a net from the large meshes left at the drift, technique a time diffused in all Mediterranean, today still used along the coast of the Cilento; to Marina of Pisciotta there are many fishermen who still use this ancient "trade of the sea".

The anchovies are fished in the night, only the larger anchovies remain entangled in the meshes of the "menaica", and in the attempt to get rid, forgiveness much blood conferring to the product a unique and inimitable taste property.

The rosy color and the sweet and intense scent of the salted anchovies make them a very exclusive and appreciate product.

This technique is also a biological system of natural selection because comes only captured adult anchovies while the young ones succeed to cross the meshes of the net.

For some anchovies recipes please visit the italian page.