Lesina eel: the lagoon, the fishing huts and Frederick II's scapece

A lagoon eighteen kilometres long

According to the Gargano National Park, the Lesina lagoon covers about 5,500 hectares between the mouth of the Fortore and Monte d'Elio, with an average depth of about eighty centimetres and salinity rising from east to west; another Park page gives about 5,200 hectares, Italy's ninth-largest basin. It reaches the sea through two channels, Acquarotta to the west and Schiapparo to the east, whereas in the past there were five outlets. It is separated from the Adriatic by the Bosco Isola, a sand bar about a kilometre wide and eighteen long, with dunes and Mediterranean scrub. Pliny, the Park notes, called it Lacus Pantanus. With nearby Varano it forms the largest brackish complex in southern Italy, important for breeding and migrating birds: in winter the most abundant species is the coot.

Sources: Parco nazionale del Gargano — Laguna di Lesina · Parco nazionale del Gargano — Lagune costiere

A fish born in the Sargasso Sea

The Park describes the European eel as a fish that lives in fresh and brackish water but breeds at sea, in the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic, the only known spawning ground. Mature adults leave in autumn and die after spawning. The larvae, called cieche, take about three years to reach the Mediterranean after a journey of about seven thousand kilometres; they then live in rivers and lagoons such as Lesina, one of their growth areas. The body is cylindrical, the skin thick and slimy; males measure thirty to fifty centimetres, females up to a metre, and around the Gargano lakes the largest females are called capitoni. The species is on the IUCN Red List: the Park cites heavy fishing pressure and the complexity of its life cycle among the causes of its decline.

Sources: Parco nazionale del Gargano — Anguilla · Parco nazionale del Gargano — Anguille di Lesina

Fishing huts, fyke nets and spears

Lagoon fishing, the Park explains, uses techniques unchanged for centuries. Eels were caught from paranze, also called pagghiari, built on the shores: from October to December fishermen waited for the traps, the bertovelli, to fill. The lagoon page distinguishes fixed fishing, with fyke nets and huts for eels, shrimps and grey mullet; roving fishing with trammel nets for mullet, sea bass, sea bream and sand smelt; and spear fishing, done at night mainly for eels, mullet and bass. The typical boats have flat bottoms and vertical sides. Historically eels and capitoni were also dried and salted; the Park reports that in 1289, under Charles II of Anjou, the royal household was supplied with salted fish from the lagoon. In summer an oxygen crisis called futorio can occur, driving the fish away.

Sources: Parco nazionale del Gargano — Anguille di Lesina · Parco nazionale del Gargano — Laguna di Lesina

Scapece, from the emperor to the Atlas

Lesina scapece has been a traditional food product since 2001. The Apulian Atlas record describes hand-picked eels, cleaned and gutted, then either fried in floured pieces of six to eight centimetres or roasted whole and cut after cooking; either way they are dressed with mint and garlic and kept in glass jars with extra virgin olive oil and vinegar. The result is firm, light yellow-brown and sweet-sour. Tradition says Emperor Frederick II was fond of it, and the record refers to the Liber de coquina cookbook from the first half of the 13th century; the historian Michelangelo Manicone mentions it in 1807 in his Fisica Appula. Production runs from September to December. The Atlas links it to scapece gallipolina, the other great Apulian scapece.

Sources: Atlante dei PAT di Puglia — Scapece di Lesina

At table: embers, troccoli and soup with wild greens

The Park recommends tasting eel on the spot, where it grew and was caught, cooked to traditional recipes. Its pages mention eel with linguine, with lampascioni (wild hyacinth bulbs), roasted, and the typical eel soup with local wild greens. The festival menu described by the Park adds troccoli with eel sauce, lampascioni with potatoes and eel, split eel grilled over embers and fried eel with sand smelt. The Puglia Region, in its Lesina profile for the Interreg AI-SMART project, notes that the town is known precisely for eels and capitoni, and points to the cathedral and the 13th-century bishop's palace in the old town, as well as the abbey of Santa Maria di Ripalta near the Fortore and the sanctuary of San Nazario.

Sources: Parco nazionale del Gargano — Anguille di Lesina · Parco nazionale del Gargano — Sagra delle anguille · Regione Puglia, Interreg AI-SMART — Lesina

The December festival

According to the National Park, the Lesina eel festival began in 2004, tied to the eel's recognition as a Slow Food presidium, and is usually held in the second week of December, opening the Christmas season on the Gargano. It is organised by local authorities and the Park, supported by cultural associations and fishermen's cooperatives; alongside the stalls there are seminars on local resources and traditional music from the Gargano and Capitanata. The page cites the 2008 edition as an example, three days with thirteen stalls and about three thousand dishes. The local products page adds that it takes place in the old town, with a menu of about four eel courses. The current calendar for each edition should be checked with the Municipality of Lesina.

Sources: Parco nazionale del Gargano — Sagra delle anguille · Parco nazionale del Gargano — Anguille di Lesina

The visitor centre and San Clemente islet

The Municipality of Lesina runs the Lagoon Park visitor centre on the lakefront, a starting point for nature and history walks, boat trips on the lake and events, designed also for families and schools; opening times should be checked with the office. From the lakefront a wooden walkway about two hundred metres long, opened in 2016 and accessible to people with reduced mobility, leads to San Clemente islet in the middle of the lagoon. Here stood a church built on the remains of a pagan building, destroyed by the Saracens and rebuilt in 1165 by the abbot of San Clemente a Casauria, when Lesina lay on the pilgrims' route to the sanctuary of Saint Michael; earthquakes and ground subsidence sank the convent, whose foundations still break the surface. The islet also holds rooms of a Roman villa from the 2nd to 1st century BC.

Sources: Comune di Lesina — Centro visite del Parco della Laguna · Comune di Lesina — L'isolotto di San Clemente

How to taste it, and a question of sustainability

Eel tastes rich and assertive: try it first grilled and split, to sense the flesh, then as scapece, where vinegar and mint lighten it, and finally in a pasta dish such as troccoli with eel sauce. With these, choose a white or rosé from the Foggia area with good acidity. The right season is autumn, when traditional fishing is in full swing, up to the December festival. There is one point to weigh honestly, though: the Park notes that the European eel is a declining species, and on the Slow Food Foundation's website we found no active page for the presidium mentioned by the Park. We therefore suggest tasting it as an experience of the place, asking where the fish comes from, rather than as a habit. To take home, scapece in a jar is the traditional way of preserving it.