The Sea Flavour Project
Who?
The Town Museum of Umag has developed a joint Sea flavour Project with the Italian Community Centre “Fulvio Tomizza” of Umag to enhance the value of the local fishing tradition and conserve the culinary heritage through local fishing products as well as to encourage their further spread and development.
What?
The Sea flavour Project is aimed at informing the public about the importance of fish and other seafood consumption with the purpose of acquainting people with the different species of fish, other marine organisms as well as the traditional culinary practices and hence encouraging major fish and seafood consumption and reinforcing, in the long run, the fishing sector within the area of the Pinna nobilis Fisheries Local Action Group. The project is funded by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund.
The project was financed with funds from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund.
Fish as a food
TRADITIONAL SMALL WOODEN FISHING BOATS
Since the beginning of the 20th century, the number of fishing boats in Umag has been constantly increasing. Most of them were small traditional wooden boats with flat bottoms such as topo, batana, batelina and sandolo, which were suitable for fishing in shallow waters. They were tied to metal poles (bitts) near the breakwater (diga) in the Umag harbour. In the places along the Umag coast without a safe harbour, the fishermen would build wooden cranes called grue in order to provide a secure “mooring” for their small boats like the batana and the kaic.
Francescho Zacchigna, from Lovrečice (1953.)
Flathead grey mullet (Mugil cephalus)
There are six species of mullet in the Adriatic Sea, with the flathead grey mullet being commercially the most important one. In the history of Istrian and Umag fishing, this fish has been noted everywhere as the main catch.
Given that it lives close to river estuaries or stream confluences, in our region it used to be caught in seasonal fishing grounds such as Sečovlje, the Umag harbour and, in the winter, at Pozoi. In the 17th century, the flathead grey mullet was more appreciated than sea bass and gilt-head bream. Moreover, it was salted and shipped to Venice in barrels. Its gut was used for lamp oil making. Before the Second World War, in winter months, during the flathead grey mullet migration, the biggest fishermen event, named tratta dei sievoli ( flathead grey mullet trawl net fishing) would take place in the Umag harbour. The bay would be closed by an extensive trawl net (tratta) owned by the Municipality.
That was a luxury for a fisherman; a fisherman would take a grater care of his boots than of his hands. About 50 or 60 years ago, my father used 20 fishing nets, 360 m long in total, and today my son throws 5 km of nets at one go.
Danilo Latin, a fisherman from Zambratija (1960)
Fishermen
Although life near the sea is closely linked to the fishing, the professional fishing activity in Umag was not developed at all in the past. In the absence of a well-functioning fish market, the fishermen were often forced to exchange their catch for agricultural produces. Only a handful of people from Umag and Savudrija engaged in fishing trade as such, while for the rest, fishing was just a secondary occupation in addition to the agriculture. They would be mainly hired during the fishing season, sometimes even as “day” fishermen. In fishing families, tradition was passed on from generation to generation. The head of the family was also the captain of the vessel (capobarca), while the crew members were his sons, brothers and nephews.
The first turning point for the fishermen after the Second World War was the boat engine, followed by the introduction of rubber boots, the use of lighter, synthetic fibre nets instead of the cotton ones and the installation of mechanic fishing net haulers that arrived to Umag in 1970s.
The fishermen are usually shown with their face and forehead wrinkled by the sun and the wind, but their callous hands, course palms hardened by the salt and the fishing nets, and their back curved by oars and ropes, cannot be seen.
Predrag Matvejević, (The Mediterranean breviary)
