Cacciucco
Cacciucco is an Italian fish stew native to the western coastal towns of Tuscany and Liguria. It is especially associated with the port city of Livorno in Tuscany and the town of Viareggio to the north.Overview
Cacciucco is a hearty stew consisting of several different types of fish and shellfish; one tradition holds that there should be five different types of fish in the soup, one for each letter c in cacciucco. A wide variety of Mediterranean fish and shellfish may be used, such as red gurnard, armored gurnard, scorpionfish, small clams such as littleneck or manila, firm-fleshed fish such as monkfish or other whitefish, red snapper, John Dory, or grouper, mussels, shrimp, and calamari. Traditionalist chefs add a stone taken from the sea to the dish. Crabs, eels, cuttlefish, octopus, bream, mullet, or anything else caught that day might be used.
A wide variety of other ingredients are used in the broth, including various vegetables, spices and other ingredients. There are many variants of cacciucco, varying by region and availability of ingredients.
The dish is traditionally attributed to the Near East, which might be true, as the word cacciucco comes from the Turkish kaçukli, which reflects how the stew is made, from a variety of fish.
Pellegrino Artusi, in his classic 1891 cookbook, gave the following recipe:Similar dishes
Cacciucco is similar to other types of fish stew, such as the French bouillabaisse, Greek kakavia, Spanish zarzuela, and Portuguese caldeirada. Cioppino, another fish stew, was created by Italian-American fisherman in San Francisco, who used the local Dungeness crab in a variation of the cacciucco recipe.
