The town of Sciacca in southern Sicily is renowned for their anchiovies, sardines, fresh fish, and fish products. This weekend, they are celebrating their successes with the 3rd annual Azzurro Fest. The Azzurro Fest is a chef-guided food festival with cooking demonstrations, street food tastings, music performances by Italian pop stars, and a “village” of kiosks sporting artisanal crafts and food. One of the specialties I’m going to venture to guess will be present is bottarga. Bottarga is a delicacy made of fish eggs from (as you can see in the photo) different fish, including tuna, mullet, and sword fish. The eggs are packed together and massaged by hand into a form. The form is salted with sea salt and then left to dry for a few weeks. It makes a succulent, yet simple pasta dish with olive oil and breadcrumbs: you shave the pieces onto the pasta like you might a hard, salty cheese. It’s also very tasty on crustini and fresh bread.
