Bottarga
The history and tradition of an exquisite, top-quality product
Bottarga, its history
Sardinian caviar is found inside a specific fish, the grey mullet.
Grey mullet is not renowned for its meat but rather, for its exquisite roe. The roe is washed, salted and dried, being transformed into an authentic delicacy with an intense flavour and a slightly bitter aftertaste.
The Phoenicians were the first to salt and cure the sacs filled with grey mullet roe.
The Arabs called it ‘battarikh’ (salted fish eggs) and gradually spread its use throughout the Mediterranean. In mid-1400, Bartolomeo Platina declared, “I do not remember having eaten anything so exquisite” in “Il piacere onesto e della buona salute”. In a document dated 1386, mention is made of a Catalan-Aragonese pirate ship which captured a sailing boat leaving the port of Oristano laden with “salted eel and bottarga”.
If you take a look at the archives, in documents from Sardinia and elsewhere, there are plenty of reports and, above all, praise for this amber-coloured delicacy.
From the Phoenicians to the Carthaginians, and the ancient Egyptians to the Romans, the people of the Mediterranean had always loved this delicious food, and the Sardinians were certainly no exception.
It was considered a valuable commodity for bartering or as a gift and deemed particularly noble and precious, but not for everyone. It was always a delicacy dominated by lagoon and tuna fishermen.
Today, leading delicatessens and chic restaurants display bottarga in their refrigerated display cases. In the 1970s, however, it was a delicacy reserved for a few fortunate individuals, because the only way to get hold of one or two whole roe sacs was to seek out the fishermen – buying in quantity had not yet been thought of.
The market has expanded rapidly with a high demand from France, Germany, Japan and Spain, not to mention the United States and America in general.
While there is no shortage of mullet from Japan to Australia, it is the sea around Sardinia that provides consumers with the finest bottarga.
It should be savoured slowly, one morsel at a time. In particular, the major production centres are in Alghero, Carloforte, Sant’Antioco, San Teodoro, Cabras, Porto Pino, Cagliari and Tortolì.
There are also some small companies in Tuscany, Sicily and Calabria, Provence, Turkey and Tunisia. But it is the combination of sea beds, climate and age-old processing methods that makes Sardinian bottarga so unique and unrivalled.
Company
Blue Marlin s.r.l.
P.IVA 01039140957
Main contacts
Legal and operative site
Via Is Carrelis 1,
09095 – Mogoro (OR) – Sardegna (IT)
Phone: +39 0783 991468
Fax: +39 0783 997398
Mail: info@bottarga.it
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