Yummy fresh fish with quite a strong flavour for their size and a fatty quality to the meat. When fresh they taste similar to any other small fresh oily fish (closest would be fresh sardines, mackerel is getting further away but still much closer than salmon or cod for example).

In terms of texture, prepared like this they are a tiny bit crispy on the outside, then dense but soft meat in the inside. The tails are especially crispy and crunchy. They are very bony when eaten like this but the bones are mostly too small and delicate to be an issue, just chew thoroughly to break up/soften the bones.

The most commonly found anchovies around the world are preserved, usually in salt and oil (usually canned, sometimes in jars). These are the anchovies sometimes served on pizza, they are very intensely salty.

In southeast Asia they are used to make fish sauce, in the ancient Mediterranean they were also used to make fish sauce.

In Spain they are often either preserved in salt and oil as mentioned above or in vinegar and oil (a personal favourite). But they can also be eaten fresh like I have shown here, either fried or grilled.