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Spaghetti con la Colatura di Alici di Cetara

Cetara

‹ Campania

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I

Origin

Campania — Cetara, Salerno province, Amalfi coast

II

Description

Pasta from the Amalfi coast village of Cetara using its most celebrated product: colatura di alici, the amber-gold liquid extracted from salted anchovies after 12–24 months of slow pressurised fermentation in wooden barrels (terzigni). A single dish: spaghetti cooked precisely al dente, drained (but some cooking water reserved), and dressed in a bowl with colatura, raw garlic-infused olive oil, chopped parsley, and dried chilli — all cold, applied off-heat, then tossed together. The heat from the pasta is the only cooking the sauce receives. The resulting dish is intensely savoury, oceanic, and translucent-sauced.

III

The Thread

—Rice noodles dressed with fermented fish sauce (nước mắm) as the primary seasoning — no cooking of the sauce; the same ancient fish fermentation liquid applied to a starch Vietnamese
—Colatura is the modern descendant of garum — the Roman fermented fish sauce; using it on pasta recreates an ancient flavour combination that predates the dish's name Roman · (Ancient)
—Noodles dressed off-heat with a fermented fish-based sauce — the same concept of applying an intensely savoury fermented liquid to pasta without cooking the sauce Thai
IV

Flavour Context

The colatura's oceanic depth — salted fish, time, and sea air compressed into a few drops — transforms plain pasta into something otherworldly; the garlic-infused oil, parsley, and chilli are merely supporting characters to this ancient, liquid umami

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