A small glass cruet of amber colatura beside a plate of anchovy fillets in olive oil with red chili flakes, a twist of spaghetti and a lemon half on a pale stone surface

IASA of Cetara: The Anchovy House Behind the Colatura

Cetara is a fishing town on the Amalfi Coast in the province of Salerno, and IASA is the anchovy and tuna house that grew out of it. A Cetara family founded the company in 1969. In 2019 the siblings Salvatore, Vincenzo and Lucia Di Mauro ran it, according to Positano News. Its range includes the two things an anchovy can become: the fish itself, packed in olive oil, and colatura, the amber liquid drawn off anchovies as they mature under salt. In IASA's line they are the colatura di alici in a 100-milliliter bottle (shop IASA Colatura di Alici) and the spicy anchovies in olive oil in a 200-gram jar (shop IASA Spicy Anchovies).

The house in Cetara

IASA describes Cetara, where its founding family came from, as a village known for catching and processing tuna and anchovies. The company says it was the first in the world to pack tuna in glass jars. Positano News, a local Amalfi Coast paper, repeated the claim in 2019, when the company turned fifty. It reported that year that IASA was the largest fish-preserving company in the province of Salerno and employed more than 100 people, many of them women. By then production had moved from Cetara to a plant in Pellezzano, between Salerno and Baronissi.

IASA's own account puts its range at about 60 products. Ninety-five percent of sales are in Italy and 5 percent go abroad, through small importers that supply boutiques and specialty shops. IASA says the only machines in its process are the ones needed for food safety, and that it is one of the few companies that still pack tuna into tins by hand. Tuna caught by boats that include Cetara's own fleet reaches the plant within hours, according to the company.

What colatura is

The Campania regional agriculture department calls colatura di alici the heir to garum, the fish sauce described by Pliny and Horace. The Cetara version was registered as an EU Protected Designation of Origin by Regulation 2020/1529 of 14 October 2020. The colatura producers' official site dates the start of the application to 28 October 2015, so the process took almost five years. The DOP rule defines the product as the liquid from anchovies of the species Engraulis encrasicolus matured under salt, and its steps read like a recipe with a legal edge.

The rule, from sea to bottle

Stage What the DOP rule and the Campania description require
Fishing zone The sea off the province of Salerno, 50 to 200 meters deep, no more than 12 miles from shore
Season Anchovies caught near the Amalfi Coast from late March to mid-July
Cleaning Heads and guts removed by hand only
First salting Covered in plenty of sea salt for 24 hours
Maturation Layered with medium or coarse sea salt in wooden barrels called terzigni, pressed under weighted wooden disks
Sun The Campania description says the liquid that rises in the barrel is collected in large glass bottles and set in direct sun for about four or five months
Collection The liquid is poured back into the barrel, seeps down through the layers, is drawn off through a hole, and is filtered through linen cloths called cappucci
Chemistry At least 20 g salt and 8 g protein per 100 g, fat 0.1 to 3 g, pH 5 to 7
Appearance Clear and bright, amber tending to mahogany brown, with a persistent aroma of salted anchovy
Place and bottle Every stage through bottling within the province of Salerno; sold in clear glass from 50 to 1,000 ml

The chemistry row matters most in the kitchen. The rule sets minimums for salt and protein, so every DOP bottle is at least one-fifth salt by weight and at least 8 percent protein. Only colatura made this way may carry the name Colatura di Alici di Cetara DOP. The label is where to check which kind is in hand.

The salt, worked out

The 20 percent floor is easy to carry into the pan. Five grams of DOP colatura holds at least 1 gram of salt. Fifteen grams, a generous pour into a pan of pasta for two, holds at least 3. These are minimums, because the rule sets a floor and not a ceiling. Treat colatura as the salt in a dish rather than an addition to it. Salt the pasta water lightly or not at all, and taste before adding anything else. The tinned fish and health guide goes through salt species by species.

Using the colatura

Colatura works in drops and teaspoons. For pasta, warm garlic and chile in olive oil, take the pan off the heat, add colatura, then toss in the drained spaghetti with parsley. That is the aglio e olio with anchovy recipe, with the fillets replaced by a spoonful from the bottle. A few drops can also go into a vinaigrette for bitter greens, boiled potatoes, raw fennel, or a tomato salad.

The spicy anchovies

The spicy anchovies are the other form, the fish itself, in olive oil in a 200-gram jar (shop IASA Spicy Anchovies). Positano News lists anchovies under salt among IASA's specialties, alongside tuna and colatura. Lay the anchovies on buttered toast with a caper or two, as the capers and caperberries guide covers. Chop them into a salsa verde, or melt them into the oil at the start of a pasta sauce, where their heat does the work of pepper flakes. The oil in the jar is seasoned too. It dresses bread, beans or greens, and the guide to the oil left in a tin has more ideas.

Where IASA sits among anchovies

The Cantabrian quota report covers the quota under which Spain's Cantabrian coast fishes its anchovies. IASA works in a different tradition, on the Gulf of Salerno, where the anchovy product with its own EU designation is a liquid drawn from a barrel, made to a rule written for one province. The anchovies complete guide sets the styles side by side. The complete tinned fish guide covers the other fish that go into tins.

Sources & Further Reading

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