"The anchovy is the Marmite of the aquatic world. Love it or hate it, neutrality isn’t an option. Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, found them repulsive. Horace was pithier: “They stink.” But Christopher Beckman, horror film producer turned food historian, swears by them. A Twist in the Tail is his delightful tribute to this diminutive fish.
The anchovy’s reputation, he argues, precedes it. Taste is another matter. Try subtly incorporating some anchovies into an unsuspecting friend’s dinner, and the chances are they wouldn’t notice them. But they may well find the meal more delicious. For anchovies are exploding with umami, that moreish, flavourful “fifth taste”, in marked contrast to the common four: sweet, sour, salty, bitter. It all comes down to “free glutamates”. Most meats and vegetables contain around 100mg of them per100g. Cured meats, such as prosciutto, and sun-dried tomatoes push that figure to 300-700. At 1,200, anchovies are “umami bombs” dropped on the tongue’s
glutamate receptors.(...)
Beckman charts the revolution in taste that followed the discarding of the notion that food could help keep the four humours in balance.(...)
In France, appeals to the palate supplanted humoral theory, and anchovies secured their place on the plate.(...)
They went viral in18th-century Britain, where they were used in ketchups.(...)
In Italy, the anchovy enjoyed a rather pedestrian reputation. In a 1690s cookbook, Antonio Latini called his anchovy sauce "sfacciatella", the “little harlot” who could get on with anyone. That sense survives in spaghetti alla puttanesca, the Neapolitan “harlot-style” pasta with anchovies beloved of the time-starved budget cook.(...)
Beckman closes his book with a sales pitch. Anchovies, he tells us, are packed with calcium, iron, niacin, and vitamin D. What’s more, they lower the risk of cardiovascular diseases. I, for one, am sold.(...)
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