Anchovy Paste, the once & future seasoning.

Anchovy fillets on a Ceasar Salad. This and the other photos from Wikipedia.

Going through a forty year old LA Times cookbook of recipes from the restaurants of that time I was struck that anchovy paste was often used, not just to rev up salad dressings, but as a seasoning in many dishes and sauces. Today it is almost never mentioned except in family recipes from Italian American cooks like Rachel Ray or others coming from a southern Italian or Sicilian traditions.

This is really too bad because a tube of anchovy paste is handy, even a small can of anchovy fillets in olive oil is way too much for most dishes, unless you are making a bucket size Greek salad or an Italian one of roast peppers and other vegetables for a big party or barbecue.

A good quirt of it replaces salt in gravy and adds a rich bass note, not unlike Asian fish sauce. You don’t taste it, but you get a richer result, so you don’t have to tell people it’s in their plate. It is a very good substitute for salt in any dish that calls for it. It is especially good beef gravies.



A once common use of anchovy fillets in the British Isles, a snack called "Scotch Woodcock."

Historically until the Muslims seized north Africa in the eighth century, Roman and post Roman cooks added Garum, commonly translated as Fish Pickle, to almost everything, just like the Vietnamese, Chinese and other South East Asians. In Spain, Portugal, southern France and Italy anchovies came into use to replace the Garum that for some reason was no longer made on the shores of north Africa.
Bottles of Thai fish sauce.

The Chinese call it Fish Sauce, Nuc Mam in Vietnam, Bagoong or Pitis the Philippines. It is also used all the other Southeast Asian nations. During my year on the Mekong River during the Vietnam war I can attest that the most remarkable pungent awful smell that came from the riverside factories where fish was dried and then fermented into Nuc Mam. The smell was overpowering even if you were miles away. These drying and fermentation factories were always well away from any villages.