On the other hand, or maybe partially because of this, Italians are incredibly conservative when it comes to food. In fact, many of them won’t eat anything but Italian food.
It may seem strange at first that the Italians are so conservative about food, but I think you’d come to understand it if you ate here for a while.
The people in Italian fishing ports have long known how much the Japanese love fish, and raw fish in particular. Why? Because the Japanese came in to buy up the bluefin caught off the coast of Sicily and Sardinia. They were apparently exporting huge amounts to Japan. What’s more, the Japanese would look eagerly at the fatty portion of the fish that the Italians tossed out, instead purchasing every bit of it. The Italians must have found this very odd. What kind of strange people would constantly eat fish raw and go after the light-colored meat that surely didn’t taste very good?
I learned that up until about ten years ago, a type of tuna fishing (called mattanza in Italian) was hugely popular—a sight so incredible that it was included on tour packages. Four boats—and by no means large ones—close in on a net spread out across the sea from four different directions, encircling and trapping the tuna. At the same time, they pull up the nets, bringing the fish to the surface where they pierce them with harpoons to catch them. The ocean around the boats turns bright red, so the area is known as the “death chamber”. The fishermen on the boats work to keep their balance as they carry out this ancient fishing practice that involves spectacular teamwork among the four boats. Still, it is such a hard way of fishing that they occasionally lose their lives. Apparently, it was so dangerous that they eventually removed it from the tour packages. The number of bluefin tuna has also begun to decline in recent years, so there are some years where the mattanza is not performed, and the tradition is gradually disappearing.
You may think that the Italians have no custom of eating raw fish, but you’d actually be mistaken. In the southern region of Puglia, for example, you’ll find fishmongers lining the coast selling fresh fish. You may see the locals buy these fish and then turn them into lunch right there on the beach. In other words, once they clean the fresh fish and remove the organs, they just put a little lemon on them and eat them. For us sashimi-loving Japanese, the freshness of the fish in Puglia, combined with the ease with which they’re eaten, certainly seems like an incredible thing to experience.
Seriously… what a dream!
