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Anchovies in oil

PAT · Fish and seafood · Calabria, Campania

Apulica editorial team · Sources checked:

In brief

History and origin

Anchovies in oil are the next step after salting: fish kept under salt is cleaned, split into fillets and covered with oil, giving a preserve ready to eat. The Campania Region links this preparation to anchovy fishing, which along the coasts of Naples and Salerno has produced many different recipes for keeping them.

In Calabria the regional record says the preserve was born among the fishermen, who made it for themselves, and only later spread to other food businesses. The fishermen kept the jars in their cellars, where they kept best, alongside the household's cured meats and cheeses.

In Calabrian dialect they are called alici sutt'ugliu. In the national list of traditional products Calabria records them as Alici sott'olio and Campania as Filetti di alici sott'olio.

Sources: Regione Campania — Filetti di alici sott'olio (prodotto tradizionale) · Regione Calabria — Schede PAT: preparazioni di pesci, molluschi e crostacei (237-257) · Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026)

Area and method of production

In Campania the anchovies are first salted in tubs for about two days; heads and guts are then removed and they are salted again in drums closed with weighted wooden lids, so the fish loses its blood naturally. After maturing for five or six months they are rinsed in salted water, left to drain for sixteen to eighteen hours, filleted by hand and sealed in jars under oil.

The Calabrian record describes all-manual work on local fish. The anchovies are tipped onto a table, the head and tail end are removed and they are sprayed with warm brine, which washes off scales and salt. They are then filleted and packed into jars of various sizes with chilli, covered in oil.

In Calabria the work takes place between May and July. The product matures under a weight for sixty to ninety days and, once hermetically sealed, is ready to eat about three months later.

Sources: Regione Campania — Filetti di alici sott'olio (prodotto tradizionale) · Regione Calabria — Schede PAT: preparazioni di pesci, molluschi e crostacei (237-257)

How to recognise it

According to the Calabria Region's record, anchovies in oil are long and flat and measure around ten centimetres. The colour is silvery, the smell intense and the taste salty and just slightly hot. The ingredients are few and declared: anchovies, salt, olive oil and chilli, both hot and sweet.

In Campania the product comes as fillets, cleaned and separated by hand after the long maturing under salt, and packed in jars under oil. The difference between the two traditions lies mainly in timing and seasoning: the Campanian version goes through a salting of many months, while the Calabrian one adds chilli and matures under a weight for two or three months.

Sources: Regione Calabria — Schede PAT: preparazioni di pesci, molluschi e crostacei (237-257) · Regione Campania — Filetti di alici sott'olio (prodotto tradizionale)

Where to taste it

In Campania anchovy fillets in oil belong to the coastal areas of the provinces of Naples and Salerno, where anchovy fishing has shaped many preserving recipes. The Amalfi Coast and the Cilento, on the sea of the province of Salerno, are places to look for them in local workshops and shops.

In Calabria the regional record names the whole region as the production area. To document a tradition of more than twenty-five years it cites Calabrian cookery texts and a business in Amantea, on the Tyrrhenian coast in the province of Cosenza, that had been making them for twenty years.

Along the same coasts anchovy fishing also feeds other traditional preserves: salted anchovies in Calabria, and in Campania the anchovies under salt from which the fillets themselves start, spending months in salt before they go under oil.

Sources: Regione Campania — Filetti di alici sott'olio (prodotto tradizionale) · Regione Calabria — Schede PAT: preparazioni di pesci, molluschi e crostacei (237-257)

Protection

When

Where

Calabria, Campania