I have to figure it’s because a large chunk of the American population has their first exposure to fish as some sort of processed fish product (fish sticks at school), or indifferently kept fish from the grocery store. They decide they don’t like it, and that’s it.
Meanwhile, those of us whose first experiences were with very fresh fish, tend to love it. My first fish experiences were with saltwater fish my grandfather and I had caught that morning, for example, but my wife’s were some sort of cheap-ass fishy-tasting frozen fish (loaded with bones) her mom would buy and cook periodically. So as you can imagine, when we met, our opinions of fish were very different. It took her a while of me ordering fish at good restaurants and showing her that it’s not fishy, and it’s very delicate and delicious if done properly, for her to come around to the fish-enjoyer camp.
I will have to put that town on our travel bucket list. Liguria is also a good region for anchovies. The year before the pandemic, we took a trip to Italy and spent a couple of days in Levanto, just north of the Cinque Terre. I had a dish of roasted nnchovies, potato, and tomato that was so good I almost cried. This was after we each had a pasta dish–the region is known for pesto and these little pasta bags filled with cheese and walnuts in butter sauce, and we couldn’t choose between them–and drank most of a bottle of an excellent local white wine. We walked back the the B&B verrry slowly. Every little shop sold a variety of canned and jarred anchovies. I’d be happy staying in that region of Italy for a couple of months. Maybe after retirement…
My grandmother used to make pizza with thin crust, red sauce, mozzarella, and sour balls. Brach’s sour balls. I always thought that was really weird but I guess she was just programmed to run grandmother sub-routines 24/7 and sometimes they crossed-over in unpredictable ways.
