Piedmont has no sea, yet anchovies are everywhere in its traditional cooking: they melt into bagna cauda with garlic and oil, sharpen the sauce of vitello tonnato, and give bagnèt verde much of its salt and character. Three dishes that could hardly be more Piedmontese, all dependent on a fish that had to come from somewhere else!
To understand how it got there, you have to follow the old Vie del Sale, the salt roads that climbed inland from Ligurian ports such as Savona and Oneglia, crossed the mountains through passes including the Colle di Tenda, then descended toward Cuneo, the Langhe and Monferrato, with routes continuing farther toward Savoy and Provence.
