Santoña sits on a natural harbour at the point where the River Asón flows into the Victoria and Joyel marshes. Nestled beneath a high wooded hill it looks out across the dramatic expanse of the Bay of Biscay, and across the estuary to the town of Laredo. It is a position that has blessed Santoña with a history far larger and more impressive than the town’s size would lead you to believe. Most importantly, it has made Santoña the anchovy capital of Spain.
The Bay of Biscay is home to some of the finest anchovies in Europe and they have been fished from at least since the Romans established a port here two thousand years ago. A turning point was the arrival in the second half of the 19th century of Italian fishermen. They brought the technique for salting and preserving anchovies from southern Italy that is still used today. Before that they were only eaten fresh.
The extraordinary thing about Santoña’s anchovy industry is that every single briny fillet is prepared by hand. It’s a painstaking, labour intensive process. From the time the fresh anchovy catch arrives at the factory, highly skilled workers carefully prepare these tiny fish. In a world of mechanisation beset by fears of a robot takeover fuelled by artificial intelligence, this is a reassuringly human enterprise that dates back over 150 years.
We visited the factory of Conservas Emilia to take a tour and learn more. There was a very instructive video and then a tour of the factory. To watch the women – even today it’s mostly women – delicately prepare the anchovies is to see an occupation that has been passed down through generations. When the anchovies first arrive they are headed, gutted and salted by hand, before being packed in salt in large barrels.
The salting lasts at least six months before the fish are removed. To avoid damage to the flesh, each anchovy is individually cleaned by hand to remove the skin and salt. They are washed in barrels of water to remove more salt and placed in cloth to dry them. Then skilled workers, known as sobadoras, gently remove the tail, split the fish into two fillets and remove all bones, trimming any ragged bits on the fillet’s edges.
We watched this part of the process take place. It requires a lot of skill, but the women were so adept at it they prepared each fish at remarkable speed, then layered the fillets individually into tins and jars. The oil is added at this stage. Not all anchovies are created equally, the process used in Santoña isn’t always followed elsewhere. When you eat a Santoña anchovy you can be assured it has been treated with care.
Santoña’s location also made it an important naval base which attracted attacks from the French and the English at different times. Disaster struck in 1639 when a French naval force defeated the Spanish, raised Santoña to the ground, and stole a newly built Spanish galleon. The French returned during the Napoleonic Wars and occupied the town for two years. It’s natural defensive position lent it the name ‘Gibraltar of the Cantabrian Sea’.
More recently, it is associated with one of the more controversial acts of the Spanish Civil War. The Santoña Pact saw the surrender of the Basque nationalist army to an Italian fascist army sent by Mussolini to fight for the Spanish Fascist, General Franco. Many still view it as an act of treason, or at least betrayal, against the Republican government. It is still hotly contested today as a turning point in the war.
The town itself is split between the factory area, the port, and the pleasant old town. We strolled through the factory area into the old town, passing a brilliant set of street art dedicated to the fishermen of the town. The main square, Plaza San Antonio, was filled with families and we popped into La Anchoateca for lunch. We ate anchovies (what else) and Benito del Norte, the prized tuna and one of Santoña’s main catches.
We walked to the port along the esplanade past a statue of local lad, Juan de la Cosa. The owner of the Santa María, he sailed with Christopher Columbus on his 1492 voyage to the Americas. He made several voyages with Columbus and was one of the key figures in the discovery and colonisation of the Americas. The Santa Maria didn’t make it back from that first voyage though, it ran aground in Haiti.
De la Cosa didn’t return from the Americas either. He was killed in Colombia attacking a village of a local tribe. The remaining Spaniards destroyed the village and murdered all the inhabitants in revenge. The violence that accompanied the colonisation of the New World was nothing new, and at the time he died he was with Francisco Pizarro, the man most responsible for the destruction if the Incan Empire.
De la Cosa left a legacy other than the wanton destruction of entire civilisations, albeit one that aided the colonisation of the Americas. He was the cartographer who designed the oldest known European map that shows the New World. It dates from 1500 and while not exactly accurate, it is pretty good. At least it shows Cuba correctly as an island, something Columbus himself didn’t believe to be true.
