Still life with anchovies by Antonio Sicurezza. A pile of silvery anchovies on a yellow table with a frying pan in the top right corner and some garlic bottom right. No apologies for once again casting my net in the fruitful waters of Basque cuisine and history.

There is a pintxo — those tasty bites of stuff on a toothpick — that consists of a plump Cantabrian anchovy, a pickled guindilla pepper and an olive. Some people reckon it is the original pintxo, invented by one of the regulars at a bar in San Sebastián. Others are not so sure. Everyone agrees, however, that it owes its name — the Gilda — to Rita Hayworth, who starred in the movie of that name.

Last time I spoke to Marcela Garcés, we didn’t have time to talk about the Gilda. This episode fixes that omission.

A graphic print of Rita Hayworth as Gilda, holding a piparra pepper above her head, by Javier Aramburu

I also had to contact Chris Beckman again, to see if he could enlighten me on what he calls the Swedish Anchovy Conundrum.

Notes

Here, again, is Marcela Garcés’ paper: In Defense of the Anchovy: Creating New Culinary Memories through Applied Cultural Context.
Christopher Beckman’s book is A Twist in the Tail: How the Humble Anchovy Flavoured Western Cuisine.
What’s in a name? Mislabeling fish since the 16th century offers more information of the history of Swedish “anchovies”.
Here is the transcript.
Still Life with Anchovies by Antonio Sicurezza. Piparra for Gilda by Javier Aramburu, and thanks to Marcela for the photo. I’d love to credit the photographer of the cover and banner image, but none of the places where I might have stolen it saw fit to give credit. If it is yours, let me know.

Huffduff it

Sensual, Salty, and a Little Bit Spicy

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