The internet is full of fabulous facts about everything from current events to the history basket weaving. As we research for our daily content on food trucks, food carts and street food, we stumble upon some items of knowledge that we just did not know.

We have decided when these fun facts pop up, that we would share them with our readers in our section titled “Did You Know?”

For today’s Did You Know we will look at Anchovy Fun Facts

Anchovy Fun Facts: Anchovies are a family (Engraulidae) of small, common salt-water forage fish.

• There are 144 species in 17 genera, found in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans.
• November 12th is National Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day.
• The anchovy fishing period goes from March to September. The best bait to lure them to the surface is crab paste.
• Fisherman prefer to fish anchovies on nights with a full moon: with their silvery body they shine in the water under the moonlight.
• The traditional method of processing and preserving anchovies is to gut and salt them in brine, allow them to mature, and then pack them in oil or salt.
• Anchovies can concentrate domoic acid which causes amnesic shellfish poisoning in humans when eaten whole.
• To select the freshest anchovies look carefully at their eyes which should be bright and protruding, with an iris that is black and not reddened.

Anchovy Fun Facts We May Have Missed

Let us know about the Anchovy Fun Facts we missed. We always love to add to these lists. If we can verify that the facts is just that, a fact, we will give the reader credit in the article.

Reference: Wikipedia facts about Anchovies.

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