''Cacciucco'' () is an
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
fish stew
Fish stew is a stew with a soup base or ingredient of fish as food.
List
Types of fish stew from around the world include:
* '' Asam Pedas'' ( Indonesian) and ( Malaysian)
* ''Bouillabaisse'' ( Provençal fish stew originating from Marseille, ...
native to the western coastal towns of
Tuscany
Tuscany ( ; ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of 3,660,834 inhabitants as of 2025. The capital city is Florence.
Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, artistic legacy, and its in ...
.
[Danny Meyer, ''The Union Square Cafe Cookbook: 160 Favorite Recipes from New York's Acclaimed Restaurant'' (HarperCollins 2005).] It is especially associated with the
port city
A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manche ...
of
Livorno
Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 152,916 residents as of 2025. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn ...
, in Tuscany,
[Patrizia Chen, ''Rosemary and Bitter Oranges: Growing Up in a Tuscan Kitchen'' (Simon & Schuster, 2010).][Clifford A. Wright, ''The Best Stews in the World'', p. 235.] and the town of
Viareggio
Viareggio () is a city and ''comune'' in northern Tuscany, Italy, on the coast of the Ligurian Sea. With a population of over 62,000, it is the second largest city in the province of Lucca, after Lucca.
It is known as a seaside resort as well a ...
north of it.
Overview
''Cacciucco'' is a hearty stew consisting of several different types of
fish
A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...
and
shellfish
Shellfish, in colloquial and fisheries usage, are exoskeleton-bearing Aquatic animal, aquatic invertebrates used as Human food, food, including various species of Mollusca, molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of 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
The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...
fish and shellfish may be used, such as
red gurnard,
,
(''scorfano''),
small
clam
Clam is a common name for several kinds of bivalve mollusc. The word is often applied only to those that are deemed edible and live as infauna, spending most of their lives halfway buried in the sand of the sea floor or riverbeds. Clams h ...
s such as
littleneck or
manila
Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...
,
firm-fleshed fish such as
monkfish or other
whitefish,
red snapper,
John Dory, or
grouper
Groupers are a diverse group of marine ray-finned fish in the family Epinephelidae, in the order Perciformes.
Groupers were long considered a subfamily of the seabasses in Serranidae, but are now treated as distinct. Not all members of this f ...
,
[Pino Luongo & Mark Strausman, ''2 Meatballs in the Italian Kitchen'' (Artisan Books, 2007), p. 154.] mussel
Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and Freshwater bivalve, freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other ...
s,
shrimp
A shrimp (: shrimp (American English, US) or shrimps (British English, UK)) is a crustacean with an elongated body and a primarily Aquatic locomotion, swimming mode of locomotion – typically Decapods belonging to the Caridea or Dendrobranchi ...
,
and
calamari.
Traditionalist chefs add a
stone
In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...
taken from the sea to the dish.
Crab
Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura (meaning "short tailed" in Greek language, Greek), which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen#Arthropoda, abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the Thorax (arthropo ...
s,
eels,
cuttlefish
Cuttlefish, or cuttles, are Marine (ocean), marine Mollusca, molluscs of the order (biology), suborder Sepiina. They belong to the class (biology), class Cephalopoda which also includes squid, octopuses, and nautiluses. Cuttlefish have a unique ...
,
octopus
An octopus (: octopuses or octopodes) is a soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, and nautiloids. Like oth ...
,
bream
Bream (, ) are species of freshwater fish belonging to a variety of genera including '' Abramis'' (e.g., ''A. brama'', the common bream), '' Ballerus'', '' Blicca'', '' Brama'', '' Chilotilapia'', '' Etelis'', '' Lepomis'', '' Gymnocranius'', ...
, mullet, or anything else caught that day might be used.
[Ken Albala, ''Three World Cuisines: Italian, Mexican, Chinese'' (Rowman Altamira, 2012), p. 272.]
A wide variety of other ingredients are used in the
broth
Broth, also known as bouillon (), is a savory liquid made of water in which meat, fish, or vegetables have been simmered for a short period of time. It can be eaten alone, but it is most commonly used to prepare other dishes, such as soups ...
, including various vegetables (which might include
onion
An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classifie ...
s,
tomato
The tomato (, ), ''Solanum lycopersicum'', is a plant whose fruit is an edible Berry (botany), berry that is eaten as a vegetable. The tomato is a member of the nightshade family that includes tobacco, potato, and chili peppers. It originate ...
es,
leek
A leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of ''Allium ampeloprasum'', the broadleaf wild leek (synonym (taxonomy), syn. ''Allium porrum''). The edible part of the plant is a bundle of Leaf sheath, leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a "s ...
s,
zucchini
Zucchini (; : ''zucchini'' or ''zucchinis''), courgette () or ''Cucurbita pepo'' is a summer squash, a Vine, vining herbaceous plant whose fruit are harvested when their immature seeds and Fruit anatomy#Epicarp, epicarp (rind) are still soft a ...
, or
yellow squash), spices (which might include
garlic
Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plants in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chives, Welsh onion, and Chinese onion. Garlic is native to central and south Asia, str ...
,
aniseed
Anise (; '), also called aniseed or rarely anix, is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae native to the eastern Mediterranean region and Southwest Asia.
The flavor and aroma of its seeds have similarities with some other spices and herbs, ...
, dried
crushed red pepper,
kosher salt
Kosher salt or kitchen salt (also called cooking salt, rock salt, kashering salt, or koshering salt) is coarse edible salt usually without common additives such as iodine, typically used in cooking and not at the table. It consists mainly of ...
,
black pepper
Black pepper (''Piper nigrum'') is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit (the peppercorn), which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about in diameter ...
,
parsley
Parsley, or garden parsley (''Petroselinum crispum''), is a species of flowering plant in the family Apiaceae that is native to Greece, Morocco and the former Yugoslavia. It has been introduced and naturalisation (biology), naturalized in Eur ...
,
thyme
Thyme () is a culinary herb consisting of the dried aerial parts of some members of the genus ''Thymus (plant), Thymus'' of flowering plants in the mint family Lamiaceae. Thymes are native to Eurasia and north Africa. Thymes have culinary, medici ...
, or
bay leaf
The bay leaf is an aromatic leaf commonly used as a herb in cooking. It can be used whole, either dried or fresh, in which case it is removed from the dish before consumption, or less commonly used in ground form. The flavour that a bay lea ...
) and other ingredients (which might include
fish stock,
tomato paste
Tomato paste is a thick paste made from tomatoes, which are cooked for several hours to reduce water content, straining out seeds and skins, and cooking the liquid again to reduce the base to a thick, rich concentrate. It is used to impart an i ...
,
vermouth
Vermouth (, ) is an Italian aromatized wine, aromatized, fortified wine, flavored with various Botany, botanicals (roots, Bark (botany), barks, flowers, seeds, Herb, herbs, and Spice, spices) and sometimes Food coloring, colored. The modern ve ...
, or
wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...
, either white or red).
There are many variants of ''cacciucco'', varying by region and availability of ingredients.
The dish is traditionally attributed to the
Near East
The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...
, which might be true, as the word ''cacciucco'' comes from the
Turkish ''kaçukli'' ("bits and pieces" or "odds and ends"), which reflects how the stew is made, from a variety of fish.
, in his 1891 cookbook, gave a recipe using onions, garlic, oil, parsley, salt, and pepper, with:
and served "on two separate platters: on one you place the fish... and on the other... finger-thick slices of bread to soak up all the broth.
Similar dishes
''Cacciucco'' is similar to other types of fish stew, such as the French ''
bouillabaisse
Bouillabaisse ( , , ; ) is a traditional Cuisine of Provence, Provençal fish soup originating in the port city of Marseille. The word is originally a compound of the two Provençal verbs ('to boiling, boil') and ('to reduce heat', i.e. 'sim ...
'', Greek ''
kakavia'', Spanish zarzuela, and Portuguese
caldeirada and the Vietnamese canh chua cá that is very similar also phonetically.
, another fish stew, was created by
Italian American
Italian Americans () are Americans who have full or partial Italians, Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeastern United States, Northeast and industrial Midwestern United States, Midwestern ...
fisherman in
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
, who used the local
Dungeness crab
The Dungeness crab (''Metacarcinus magister'') makes up one of the most important seafood industries along the west coast of North America. Its typical range extends from Alaska's Aleutian Islands to Point Conception, near Santa Barbara, Califo ...
in a variation of the ''cacciucco'' recipe.
[Carolyn Miller & Sharon Smith, ''Savoring San Francisco: Recipes from the City's Neighborhood Restaurants'' (Silverback Books, 2005), p. 74.]
See also
*
List of fish dishes
References
{{Reflist
Italian stews
Cuisine of Tuscany
Fish stews
Mediterranean cuisine