Brodetto alla Vastese

Vasto, Chieti, Abruzzo

The fish stew of Vasto (Chieti province) — one of Italy's three canonical brodetti (Ancona, Porto Recanati, and Vasto), each distinguished by its acidifying agent and fish selection. Vastese uses pepperoni dolci (sweet red peppers) and a small amount of peperoncino as the aromatic base (no tomato, no vinegar in the oldest version), with the Adriatic's mixed catch: tub gurnard, monkfish, sole, squid, mantis shrimp, and mussels, cooked in strict layered sequence based on cooking time.

• Both are multi-fish Mediterranean stews where the sequence of fish addition is structurally important and the broth is as prized as the fish — Bouillabaisse uses rouille-garnished toast for the broth, Brodetto vastese uses plain toasted bread, both celebrating the diversity of local sea catch → Bouillabaisse French
• Both are Adriatic/Mediterranean mixed seafood braises with multiple fish types and shellfish cooked in a complex aromatic base — Spanish uses saffron and paprika, Vastese uses sweet fresh peppers and optional saffron, both showing the same approach of technique-over-recipe in fish cookery → Zarzuela de Pescado Spanish

Sweet from the peppers, deeply oceanic from multiple fish, with concentrated Adriatic brine from the shellfish — the most pepper-forward of all Italian brodetti