Pissalat

Pissalat

Type	Sauce, condiment
Course	Appetizer
Place of origin	France
Region or state	Nice and surrounding area
Serving temperature	Hot or warm
Main ingredients	Anchovies or other small fish
Other information	Important ingredient in the emblematic Niçois dish, pissaladière
Media: Pissalat

Pissalat (or pissala) is a condiment originating from the Nice region of France. The name comes from peis salat in Niçard and means 'salted fish'. It is made from anchovy puree flavoured with cloves, thyme, bay leaf and black pepper mixed with olive oil. Pissalat is used for flavouring hors d'oeuvres, fish, cold meats and, especially, the local specialty, pissaladière.

Etymology

The word pissala (in Nissard) or pissalat (in French) is composed of the old Provençal word peis for 'fish', and sala, the past participle of salar, which corresponds to the French saler ('to salt'). Together, they describe "preserves of small crushed and salted fish" or, similarly, "a piquant sauce made from the maceration of salted fish".

History

The pissalat is similar to the siqqu, from the Mesopotamian Culinary Treatise of the 2nd millennium BC. J.-C. (c. 1700 BC) or with garum (juice or sauce, in Latin, from Roman antiquity). Since the time of ancient Rome, garum has been produced (with many variants) throughout the Mediterranean basin. It is a sauce obtained by the maceration in salt of heads and intestines of mackerel, sardines, anchovies and aromatic plants. The sauce thus obtained, passed through a fine sieve, was recovered with a ladle, and was preserved in olive oil.

The manufacture of pissalat was a centuries-old local industry in the Nice-Côte d'Azur region, where the salting of sardines and anchovies employed roughly a dozen families at the beginning of the 19th century. The Niçois writer, Louis Roubaudi, notes in his 1843 book Nice and its surroundings: "The pissalat is very suitable for reviving the appetite when it is seasoned with olive oil, vinegar and salted olives."

The sauce largely disappeared from commerce during the Second World War, and exists today only in the form of local traditional artisanal and family production (it is often replaced by salted anchovies or anchovy purée), in particular for the preparation of pissaladière.

Recipe

The pissalat sauce is traditionally made from a mixture of anchovies, sardines, or poutine. These ingredients are pounded in a mortar, then macerated-fermented for several months in a large Provençal terracotta terrine with a brine of salt, pepper, olive oil, spices and herbs, thyme, bay leaf, cinnamon, and ground cloves (for preservation by salting).

The mixture is then stored in a cool place and stirred daily so as to quickly form a paste. The oil that rises to the surface must be skimmed every week. The resulting paste is passed through a fine sieve after one month. The pissalat can then be kept for some time in glass jars, covered with olive oil.

It can be eaten on slices of bread and accompany soups, vegetables, salads, meats or other dishes of Provençal cuisine.

• 

  Pissaladière.

• 

  Pissaladière.

• 

  Anchoïade (variante).

See also

• Prahok
• Larousse Gastronomique
• List of fish sauces