The Salting Houses: How Cantabrian Anchovies Are Cured

September 29, 2026

A Cantabrian anchovy fillet is not cooked. It is cured, the way jamón and prosciutto are cured: salt, pressure and time doing slow work on good raw material. The small silver fish caught off Spain's Cantabrian coast in spring spends a minimum of six months in salt before anyone lifts it out, washes it, cleans it by hand and lays it in olive oil. That patience is what the deep mahogany fillet melting over pan con tomate is made of. For what to do once the tin is open, the complete anchovy guide takes over.

An Italian trade on an Atlantic coast

The modern anchovy trade of Cantabria grew from Italian roots. In the late nineteenth century Italy had a strong taste for salted anchovy and was running short of fish to salt. Between roughly 1880 and 1920, salters from Genoa, Naples and Sicily crossed to Spain's north coast, to ports like Bermeo, Laredo and Santoña, in search of anchovy. At first they came seasonally, spending about four months a year on the Cantabrian coast. They brought the Mediterranean technique with them: alternating layers of fish and salt, packed tight, left to mature for months.

One of them stayed. Giovanni Vella Scaliota, an Italian salter working for the Neapolitan firm Angelo Parodi, arrived on the Cantabrian coast in the early 1880s and fell in love with a young Santoña woman named Dolores. He married her, settled, and began experimenting beyond the whole salted fish the trade had always sold. His idea was to do the hard work for the customer: clean the cured fish in the factory, removing skin and bones by hand, and sell the fillets ready to eat. He sold the first ones in butter, then switched to olive oil. Early in the twentieth century he set up the business and named it after his wife: La Dolores. The cleaned anchovy fillet in oil, the anchovy most people know today, was born in Santoña from that marriage of Italian technique and Cantabrian fish.

The costera: the spring season

The fish is the European anchovy, Engraulis encrasicolus, called anchoa, bocarte or boquerón depending on the region of Spain. In spring, when the water is mild, the anchovies tend to surface more often and come near the coast to spawn, and this is when the Cantabrian fleet works the spring costera. The Santoña product specification names spring as the best season for fishing them.

Through the early 2000s the Bay of Biscay anchovy stock slid toward collapse while quotas ran far ahead of the science: scientists recommended a total allowable catch of 11,000 metric tons for 2003, and regulators set it at 33,000. In July 2005 the fishery closed entirely. The next spring's survey put the stock at just 18,640 metric tons. The fishery reopened in spring 2010 under a management plan, drawn up with the fishermen and ready by 2008, that sets catch limits according to the number of anchovy in the sea. The anchovy came back: by 2019 the annual catch had reached roughly 26,600 metric tons. The system still breathes with the sea, as the piece on Spain's Cantabrian anchovy quota shows, but the lesson of 2005 is now written into how the fishery is managed.

Into the salt

Traditionally, each fish was beheaded and gutted by hand, then packed into barrels in alternating layers with salt and pressed. From there, time takes over. The fish mature in salt for a minimum of six months. Over those months the salt draws moisture out of the flesh, little by little, while the fish matures in its own brine. Salt is the only thing added in the barrel. The guide to how sea salt is harvested is the companion story.

The filleting tables

After the cure comes the step Vella added. The cured fish are washed, and then they are cleaned and filleted by hand: the skin removed, the fillets lifted off the central spine, the remaining bones taken out, and the fillets laid into their container. In Santoña this hand work has long been done by women from the town, the sobadoras de anchoa, in a trade now more than a century old. The evenness of the fillets in a good tin is a record of that skill. Then the fillets are covered in olive oil and sealed. The finished product contains anchovies, olive oil and salt, and nothing else.

The whole year in one table

Stage	When	What happens
The costera	Spring	Schools surface and come inshore to spawn; the fleet fishes the spring season
Salting	After the catch	Each fish is beheaded and gutted, traditionally by hand, then packed in alternating layers of fish and salt and pressed
Maturation	Six months minimum	Salt gradually draws out moisture as the fish matures in brine
Cleaning and filleting	After the cure	Fish are washed, skinned and boned by hand, and split into fillets
Packing	After filleting	Fillets are laid into tins or jars, covered with olive oil and sealed; no heat treatment
At home	Until eaten	Keep refrigerated between 41 and 54°F (5 to 12°C)

Why the tin goes in the refrigerator

A cured anchovy is a semi-preserve: it never sees heat. A tinned sardine is heat-treated in its sealed tin, which is what makes it shelf-stable. The cannery guide to how tinned sardines are made walks through that process. The salt-cured anchovy skips heat treatment entirely, which is why the Santoña product specification calls for refrigeration between 41 and 54°F (5 to 12°C) until it is eaten. The distinction runs through the whole category, and the guide to conservas versus canned fish draws the line plainly. The anchovy tin belongs in the refrigerator, next to the cheese.

Tasting the work

Knowing the process changes how the tin reads. Fishwife Cantabrian anchovies in extra virgin olive oil (shop Fishwife Cantabrian Anchovies) are anchovies in their plainest form, for laying over bread or melting into a sauce. Olasagasti Cantabrian anchovy and tuna pâté (shop Olasagasti Anchovy and Tuna Pâté) turns anchovy and tuna into a spread. Espinaler anchovy-stuffed olives (shop Espinaler Anchovy-Stuffed Olives) put anchovy inside an olive for the vermouth hour. On the Italian side of the story, IASA colatura anchovy extract (shop IASA Colatura) is anchovy in liquid form, and the spaghetti with colatura recipe is the classic way to use it.

The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver. Visitors can ask staff questions in the shop. Products ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com. A tin that took half a year of salt and skilled hands to fill deserves at least the length of a dinner to be argued over.