Bluefin tuna tarantelo in olive oil. Another silky-textured cut from the prized underside of the tuna. This is wild bluefin tuna caught off the Andalusian coast using 3,000-year-old artisanal fishing techniques.
Serving tip: plenty of flavour that you can enjoy simply on buttered toast, or make a herby, tomato based sauce and mix in the tarantelo and serve over pasta or rice.
About the cut: The tarantelo is located close to the ventresca on the fattier underside of the tuna, and has a similarly soft texture as the belly. Tarantelo has a less concentrated fat content than ventresca, but is fattier than the loin.
About the Bluefin tuna: the tuna is caught using almadraba traps, a three-thousand year old technique that relies solely on a maze of fixed nets, anchors, ropes and boats. The bluefin tuna is harvested sustainably: around 1% of the tuna that passes through the Strait is caught, and smaller tuna, which have yet to reproduce, are able to swim through the holes in the nets. The almadraba traps are set up from April to June, the time when the tuna pass through the Strait of Gibraltar. Towns along this stretch of the Costa de la Luz, including Barbate, hold festivals in May to celebrate the arrival of the tuna and this ancient tradition.
About the cannery: artisanal cannery Herpac is a family business, founded in 1986 by brothers Francisco and Diego Pacheco. Herpac is a portmanteau word, a blend of hermanos (brothers) and Pacheco. It began life as a small shop in the Andalusian fishing town of Barbate, specialising in mojama, tuna that is salted and air-dried in the sun. Today it employs 120 people, the vast majority of whom live in Barbate, and is lead by the third generation of the Pacheco family. It continues its mission to introduce the richness of the Barbate sea to tables outside Spain.
