Peruvian anchovy, the anchoveta, had and still has aprofound impact on peruvian economy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peruvian_anchoveta
By the way of Wikipedia:
"The anchoveta has been characterized as "the most heavily exploited fish in world history"
One of the most important family of fishes in the planet by its huge commercial impact.
A lot of people refuse to believe it won't make your food taste fishy. Sigh.
Well, within reason of course. In smaller quantities it is an excellent source of umami and a killer "special ingredient" for dishes that can benefit.
Throw it on a pizza, and all I taste is fish. This could just be me and my absolute aversion to "fishy" tastes though?
The secret here is in preparation. I had a local place, never asked them how but their anchovies were dry and almost crunchy, and it made the pizza delicious.
If you just take a canned in oil one and throw it on top a pizza before cooking, it permeates everything and can get fishy. I tend to at minimum press them in paper towels to get the oil out, then cut them into smaller bits. It's decent, but still can't match the pizza places's secret.
As someone who very much likes whole anchovies on pizza or cesar salad; some ppl. can deal with anchovies better in the sauce used in a traditional Sicilian sfincione pizza:
https://www.seriouseats.com/sfincione-sicilian-new-years-piz...
Yeah. But if you chop one up and dissolve it in olive oil before cooking anything else, then it's just umami
Bagna Cauda! I went down the rabbit hole a few winters back trying to perfect that dip and it was awesome. Never "perfected" of course, but I got close enough to really enjoy the recipe. Paired well with the simple dish of olive oil packed tuna, spaghetti, heavy butter and some added capers. So good and very easy to whip up.