Anchoïade with Seasonal Crudités

Salt-packed anchovies are the starting point. Not the oil-packed fillets in a tin, though those will do in a pinch. The salt-packed fish have a meatiness and depth that transformed this dish for me the first time I made it properly. You rinse them, fillet them yourself, and pound them in a mortar with garlic until you have something almost alive with flavor.

Anchoïade belongs to Provence, to the hills above the Mediterranean where olive trees grow old and fennel springs wild from the roadsides. It is the kind of food that exists because fishermen needed to preserve their catch and farmers needed something to do with their vegetables. Every meal is a meaningful choice, and this one connects you to centuries of people doing exactly what you are doing: pounding, tasting, gathering friends.

The vegetables matter as much as the paste. Go to your market. See what looks alive. Radishes with their greens still perky. Fennel with tight bulbs and feathery fronds. Carrots that smell like earth. The anchoïade is bold enough to stand up to anything, but it sings when the vegetables are truly fresh. Let things taste of what they are.