"...a delicious traditional variation, typical for example of the town of Fuscaldo in Calabria, where small oily fish are layered with salt and whole black peppercorns, or prepared with black pepper and chili peppers..."

This is one of the most wonderful things about traditional Italian food: every town has its own version of almost everything. And, of course, everyone passionately defends the idea that theirs is the only truly authentic one, while all the others are inferior imitations. It's part of the fun.

Where I live, people actually go on "hunts" for great food. We make yearly trips just to buy a particular product because "only that place makes it perfectly." Then we bring it home, talk about it with family and friends, compare producers, debate which one is best... There's an entire culture built around the pursuit of exceptional food.

>(The way you describe yours—as extremely smelly and falling apart—doesn't really suggest they're high quality. Normally, a properly cured anchovy should remain almost completely intact, so you can remove the tail and backbone and end up with two whole fillets. The peppercorns are a bit unusual as well.)

Being a consumer of jarred anchovies available in Australia(likely not the best quality)… I’ve never once gotten a whole fillet out intact!!

Instead of "rotten" I should have probably used "fermented". They're dark brown, not dry but not in a liquid, individual anchovies that are starting to fall apart. They smell like a stronger version of fish sauce.

Its also a common misconception that all glutamates are MSG (thats one salt of glutamate) and that all umami compounds are simple glutamate salts.

So while MSG is an excellent "neutral" umami ingredient, fermented products like this have a whole host of complex flavors that are often very desirable beyond just their glutamate salt.

Because people like the fish flavor ?

Same reason we use tomato paste instead of a MSG + food coloring or parmesan instead of MSG + some protein I would say.

Like labelling bacon nitrate free while also including celery seed something-or-another that is... Just nitrates.

>I mean, instead of investing so much effort to get glutamate into your food, why not use MSG directly?

Because the various uammi sources also add other flavors. I like being able to choose between soy sauce, fish sauce, worcestershire sauce, soy bean paste, mushroom powder, anchovies, chicken powder, yeast extract, and, yes, msg (with 2% i&g) because each of them affects the recipe i'm working with differently. Is your diet nothing but chicken breast, raw flour and shortening because they're the simplest sources of protein, carbs and fat?

> I mean, instead of investing so much effort to get glutamate into your food, why not use MSG directly?

HN never disappoints when it comes to bizarre takes.