Bottarga
Salted, cured fish roe pouch, a Mediterranean delicacy.
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T.Tseng · CC BY 2.0
The result is a hard, dry slab that is often served as an appetizer or used in pasta dishes.[1][2] Its English name was borrowed from Italian, which itself traces back through Arabic and Byzantine Greek.[3] Grey mullet roe pouches are the primary ingredient for bottarga, though tuna roe is also used.[4]
Key facts and history
The Greek form of the word, oiotárikhon, first appears in the 11th century in writings by Simeon Seth.[5] Avgotaracho Messolonghiou from Greece is a European protected designation of origin product.[6] The earliest recorded bottarga production occurred in the Nile Delta during the 10th century BCE.[7] Martino da Como's 15th-century writings detail a bottarga-making process involving salting followed by smoking for drying.[8]

Bartolomeo Platina's De honesta voluptate, the first printed cookbook (c. 1474), contains the Latin phrase ova tarycha.[9] Beeswax coating was a traditional preservation method for bottarga, and this technique remains in use in Greece and Egypt.[1] Turkish bottarga, produced from grey mullet roe, has been included in the Ark of Taste catalog.[10]
What the cited sources add
Chris Sherman's 2012 article in Florida Trend notes that Seth Cripe and Ed Chiles run the only U.S. company making bottarga as Europeans do.[11]
References
- Wikipedia, "Bottarga" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Riley, "The Oxford Companion to Italian Food", Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 63–4, 209, 500; Gall, "Marine and Freshwater Products Handbook (2000): 403", CRC Press, 2000, p. 416; Jenkins, "The Essential Mediterranean: How Regional Cooks Transform Key Ingredients", HarperCollins, 2003, p. 41–43 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Bottarga" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Riley, "The Oxford Companion to Italian Food", Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 63–4, 209, 500; Jenkins, "The Essential Mediterranean: How Regional Cooks Transform Key Ingredients", HarperCollins, 2003, p. 41–43 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Bottarga" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; 1st edition.; ; 1st edition.; Hughes, "The Etymology of Botargo", American Journal of Philology, 1947, p. 414–418; Dalby, "Siren Feasts", Routledge, 2013, p. 189 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Bottarga" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Coroneo, "Microbiological characterization of botargo. Classical and molecular microbiological methods", Industrie Alimentari, 2009, p. 29–36 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Bottarga" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dalby, "Siren Feasts", Routledge, 2013, p. 189; 'eggs [of fish] preserved by salting', citing Diphilus of Siphnos quoted in Athenaeus III, 121 C. . (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Bottarga" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Katselis G., et al. (2005). Fisheries research 75:138-148.; Agriculture - Quality Policy - (PDO/PGI) Fresh fish, molluscs and crustaceans and products derived therefrom (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Bottarga" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dino Joannides, Semplice: Real Italian Food: Ingredients and Recipes, 2014, , s.v.; Mark Kurlansky, Salt: A World History, Knopf, 2011, , p. 39. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Bottarga" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Maestro Martino da Como, trans. Stefania Barzini, The Art of Cooking: The First Modern Cookery Book, 2005, , p. 112. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Bottarga" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: . Italian MS in the Bitting Collection in the Rare Book Room of the United States Library of Congress. In Platina, the word is the Latin transliteration of . (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Bottarga" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Petrini, "Haviar", Ark of Taste, 2004, p. 129 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Chris Sherman, "Roe, Roe, Roe at Mote", Florida Trend, 10/4/2012 full text.. facts only, no text reused. floridatrend.com
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Bottarga (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Bottarga (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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