Among the many culinary excellences present in this territory made up of agricultural land and hills, emerges a product not linked to the land but that over time has been able to integrate into the tradition of Parma despite its distant origin, thanks to the commercial and economic dynamics born from the Middle Ages until the development of the canning industry of which the territory is a reference point worldwide.
Anchovies (or alice).
However, it is normal to be surprised that the most important industries of the anchovy market are here in Parma, far from the sea. In fact, the first anchovy processing factories were not born in the ducal city, but along the route that, retracing the paths of the anchovy workers (in Genoese dialect, anciuiè) of the Maira Valley, connected the port of Genoa to the cities of Turin and Milan.
In ancient times Parma was crossed by the so-called Salt Route, which from Liguria (Genoa and Camogli) went into the Apennines and then continued along the major centers of the Po Valley and used to exchange salt, a precious commodity of exchange and one of the oldest methods of food preservation in human history.
At that time, the farmers of the plain, having finished their summer work in the fields, dedicated themselves to the sale of anchovies and, more generally, fish.
Once the finished product had been purchased in Liguria (processed and preserved) and loaded into the carts, the long journey between villages and mule tracks began, with the destination of the Po Valley, where the product, in great demand, was sold.
The first change between the world of fish and the industrial fabric of Parma dates back to 1871, when the Tosi family of Busseto and the Rizzoli family of Turin founded the company Tosi e Rizzoli, based in Turin, specialized in the processing of alice (from Liguria) and the marketing of products of “Po Valley” origin, including tomato preserves and Parmigiano Reggiano.
In 1906, the brothers Emilio Zeffirino and Luigi Rizzoli founded Rizzoli Emanuelli, after having ceased their activity with Cav. Tosi, based in Turin, which became the first fish canning industry based in Parma. The 20th century was the most flourishing period for the fishing industry in Parma, with the birth of three leading companies in the national market: Rizzoli Emanuelli, Zarotti, and finally Delicius Rizzoli.
There are several factors that explain why the best anchovies in oil and salt bear the signature of Parma, despite the distance from the coast: first of all, the great Parmesan tradition of food preserves, understood as the ability to understand and enhance the characteristics of each product. And then the primacy of Parma in food plant engineering and in the development of technological solutions for food preservation, together with the experience in packaging.
It is also thanks to the glass industry like Bormioli that the idea of preserving anchovies in a totally new way, in oil in a glass jar, was born. A typical example of how local ingenuity is combined with the tradition of the territory, a value recognized throughout the world.