Il pesce azzurro [Blue Fish]

On a rocky promontory stretched out to the gulf, between Posillipo and Miseno, Pozzuoli is the most important Campi Flegrei center, a land where ancient and modern, culture and nature, sea and volcanos melt down in a gymkhana of colours and places.
Pozzuoli is, since ever, an important fishing center, with a quality that makes it distinguish from all others italian places because has two fisherman’s groups with different traditions: Sant’Antonio net  fishermen and Madonna dell’Assunta net ones; they hark back to two different church, two different district: “areto ‘o russo” and “abbascio ‘o mare”; but differences don’t stop here.
Sant’Antonio net fishermen usually go fishing inside the gulf, using lampare; while Madonna dell’Assunta net ones go deep sea fishing.
Every group naturally has its own holyday. Sant’Antonio is celebrated on june 13th, when fishermen carry the saint statue in procession among city streets, while Madonna dell’Assunta celebration is on august 15th.
Among typology of fish we can distinguish blue fish.
But what’s blue fish?
Blue fish is a generic name, and it doesn’t match with a scientifically defined species group.
Like in the case of “white fish” or “seafood”.
We can call blue fishes all dark blue-backed fishes (but there’s often a little bit of green) and silver-bellied.
Usually blue fishes abound in our seas and that’s the reason why they are very cheap. Among these fishes there are aguglia, alaccia, cicerello, costardella, lanzardo, pesce sciabola, sardine, mackerel, spratto and suro.
Besides, we can consider blue fish for their colours, a lot of fishes that, for size and shape, haven’t anything in common with the most famous “blue”.
Among these, we find alalunga, alletterato, biso, lampuga, palamita, swordfish and tuna fish.

Blue fish fishing techniques

Blue fish fishing is made from boats that, in dialect, are called “cianciolei” or “lamparei” and the most fished species are anchovies and sarde.
This fishing technique needs optimum weather and sea conditions, and so it is very seasonal, beginning between March and April and ending between October and November.
Fishing with light sources is very profitable, because it allows to call schools of fishes near the boats.
In this case they work with a main fishing boat and two or three little supporting boats with a light source, the “lampare” that, thanks to the sublime descriptions that famous Neapolitan songs made, entered in the collective imagination of who thinks about the Gulf of Napoli night landscape.