Fano: city of the sea

Street of "El Gugul"

In the world of fishermen

But it is by walking in the Molo dei Trabucchi, dotted with the pilings used by fishermen, or through "El Gugul," the neighborhood that is the symbol of those fishermen, that one takes in the seafaring history of Fano. This place, which owes its name to a particular type of fishing net, is a street where everyone knows each other, where people call and recognize each other only through ironic nicknames, spoken in the cryptic vernacular accessible only to those who have understood it for generations. The fishermen who live and inhabited here would set out for whole days hunting for fish to feed themselves and their families, going on Odyssey-like adventures that tempered the body and spirit, making them as sinewy as mooring lines. If one is lucky, one can still hear these stories told over a glass of Moretta or along the docks from the living voice of those who experienced them.

Moretta

On the tables in the harbor

The typical dishes of Fano cuisine have arrived on the tables of homes and restaurants by traveling long routes directly from fishermen's boats. In fact, the bond that ties Fano to fishing is visible better than anywhere else precisely in the cuisine. Every good sailor had to know how to be a cook as well, able to make do in the long days spent offshore. The typical dish with which Fano is identified is precisely that Brodetto with which the fishermen refreshed themselves from the labors of their work. And after so much eating, the fishermen needed something with which to end the meal and which above all refreshed them in view of the long sleepless nights spent probing the seabed. From here, and from the need not to waste any bottled bottoms, what is now Moretta was created , a coffee spiked with a liquor mixture of anise, rum and brandy. The result is inviting right from its appearance with the three layers of liqueur, coffee and cream forming a tricolor that heralds a sweet but strong flavor. Sipping it with your eyes closed, you can imagine the rippling of the sea shaking the keel of the ships where it was created.