Neither anchovy nor anchovy: we eat less and less fish from the Catalan coast

The European anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) changes its name depending on how we cook it. If it is fresh, and we flour and fry it at home, it will be a 'seitó'. There are fishermen who claim that there is no need to even flour it, just fry it directly with extra virgin olive oil and that is enough. When eating it, use your hands, because that crunch of the fish is good to eat without the use of a fork and knife. If we salt it, so that it is preserved for a long time, the 'seitó' transforms into an anchovy. There are fishermen who claim that there is no need to even flour it, fried directly with extra virgin olive oil and that is enough. When eating it, use your hands, because that crunch of the fish is good to eat without the use of a fork and knife. If we salt it, so that it is preserved for a long time, the 'seitó' transforms into an anchovy. One of the most prized recipes is that of Cadaqués, like that of the chef Albert Raurich, who explains it and details the differences with respect to what the author Josep Pla left written. And if we were now clear that there are two names for the same fish depending on how we prepare it, in Llançà, chef Lluís Fernández cooks one of the most desired fish stews, the anchovy one. He cooks it just as the fishermen of Llançà used to do: without potatoes, with cloves of garlic. It is a stew with fresh fish, but in Llançà they call it an anchovy. So the theory that the 'seitó' and the anchovy are different depending on whether it is fresh or salted disappears in Llançà, because when it is fresh, they already call it anchovy. And when it is salted, too.

Every place has its own ways with names, but on the Catalan coast the 'seitó' has lost it all: it is disappearing. In 2018, the Catalan fish markets caught ten thousand tons while last year, in 2025, twelve hundred. In seven years, almost nine thousand tons less. What has happened in these years for the fishing to have decreased so much? I ask the scientist Anna Bozzano, and she tells me that there are a multitude of causes that can explain it. The rise in sea temperature, among them, because anchovies like to live between eighteen and twenty degrees, and they no longer find them in our sea. If the temperature is not good, then they do not have the favorable environmental conditions to reproduce, which is with external fertilization: between May and September they lay their eggs in the sea and their sperm fertilizes them. That is why during these months of the year they used to be fished in abundance because that is when the anchovies congregate to fertilize the eggs. It is also why in spring and summer they were bigger and better because it was the moment of reproduction and, therefore, they accumulate fat.

Fewer boats fishing

The possible reasons do not end here. There are more. The fleet of purse seine boats, those dedicated to fishing for anchovies, has decreased from our ports. And we could even say that for years there has been overfishing of this oily fish. All together it is the cocktail that could explain why in our fishmongers the anchovies come from afar. At Mercabarna they assure that the anchovies they sell come especially from Cantabria, Galicia and Andalusia. In fourth place, from Catalonia and the Valencian Community. We do not have Catalan anchovy, but the demand is the same as always, because it is a fish that is part of our gastronomic imagery, for this reason the price increases. In 2022 it increased by 6.65%, and this year, which has not yet ended, from January to August, the trend in prices is also on the rise, 6.89% more.

Therefore, expensive anchovies in the market for making salted anchovies, and fewer than ever. And without any possibility of change: this August the average water temperature on the surface of our coast was 28.2°C, almost two degrees above the average value of the last decades. Neither anchovies nor salted anchovies, at this rate.