Anchovies as food Anchovies as food Anchovies are a family (Engraulidae) of small, common salt-water forage fish. There are 144 species in 17 genera, found in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. Anchovies are usually classified as an oily fish. They are small, green fish with blue reflections due to a silver longitudinal stripe that runs from the base of the caudal fin. They range from to in adult length, and the body shape is variable with more slender fish in northern populations. A traditional method of processing and preserving anchovies is to gut and salt them in brine, allow them to mature,
Exploration of the Pacific Europeans thought that the world was round and that the two oceans were one. In 1492 Columbus sailed west to what he thought was Asia. When Pedro Álvares Cabral, en route to Asia via the Atlantic and the Indian oceans, reached Brazil, in 1500, the true extent of the Americas began to become known. The Martin Waldseemüller map of 1507 was the first to show the Americas separating two distinct oceans. This guess was confirmed in 1513 when Balboa crossed Panama and found salt water. The Magellan expedition of 1519-22 proved that there was one continuous ocean from the Americas