Go fish

My wife Peggy and I were talking the other night, and it occurred to us that there might be very few couples like us anywhere. We don't agree on a whole lot as far as music and books and movies go. We usually like the same TV shows and of course the local baseball and football team. 

But we both like anchovies, and how many couples can say that? I mean, swimming on top of a pizza, or nestled around some croutons atop a Caesar salad, that's where we find the anchovy, a small, common forage fish of the family Engraulidae. They are classified as oily fish, and to make it even slicker, they come in a little tin can or glass jar with more oil and salty brine to give them that extra anchoviness.

I looked it up and found their description: small, green fish with blue reflections.

And haven't we all had blue reflections!

Anchovies have a long silver stripe down them. They have tiny sharp teeth in both of their jaws, and they eat plankton and newly-hatched fish on their way to being part of our dinner.  

That's what they eat. In turn, they are eaten by just about every predatory fish around such as the halibut, rock fish, yellowtail, shark, chinook, and coho salmon. Marine mammals and birds like them as much as we do! They are an important part of the diet of California brown pelicans and elegant terns.

And I must say, this blog has certainly taken an elegant tern today.

They come to our tables, salad bars, and pizzerias having been gutted and salted in brine, and then, once cured, it's into an oily salty can or jar for them. 

The ancient Romans liked their anchovies too! They made a fish sauce of them and called it "garum."

I have a simple test I use to see if a dictionary is good. There is a word, from Latin, that refers to charitable endeavors. The word is "eleemosynary." If I see a new dictionary, I pick it up and thumb to the "e" section, and if "eleemosynary" is there, I think it's a good dictionary.

Same way, if your pizzeria offers anchovies, it's a good pizza place, and might even be great if they add them for free! That would be eleemosynary of them.