She also made an anchovy-garlic vinaigrette, which she used on all sorts of salad because it s just such a good taste. Anchovies have long played an important role in various Mediterranean cuisines. In Italy, anchovies are chopped and combined with parsley, garlic and olive oil, and tossed with pasta. Anchovies are also a key ingredient in bagna cauda, a warm dipping sauce served with vegetables that is a specialty of Piedmont in northern Italy. In Spain, you see them in tapas bars everywhere, atop slices of bread that are slathered with soft cheese or fried whole and served mounded on a plate.
Anchovies also make an appearance in southeast Asian cooking.
Fish sauce, an ingredient essential to Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Philippine dishes, is the liquid that results from a fermentation process using anchovies. Various species lumped under the umbrella term of anchovy are found all over the world. The anchovies you buy in cans or jars are from the Mediterranean, usually Italy or Spain. They re fine for most uses, including the recipes that follow. Occasionally you ll see a recipe that calls for fresh anchovies, but they are difficult to find here, even though several species are caught off the coast of California.