anchovies with green sauce

anchovies with green sauce
Being a land closed to the sea, Piemonte is not known for its fish.
The exception is the anchovy, which is preserved in salt then carried over the mountains from the Liguria coast of the Mediterranean.
The Piemontese developed a taste of sharp, salty fishiness of anchovies. The story is told that the trade in anchovies also flourished as a form of tax evasion. Salt was taxed at the time but salted anchovies are not, so they were imported and either used a salt substitute or washed of their excess salt which was used, tax free, elsewhere.
For this story, the anchovies are a staple of Piemonte cooking.

All the process of anchovies, from the cleaning to the packing, is totally handmade: the best fillets are manually stored flat or rolled in glass jars with the addition of oil or other sauces. The smaller fillets are packed in jars 1700 g. for the catering service.