An anchovy is a small, silvery fish that lives in large groups called schools in oceans around the world. Fresh anchovies are about as long as your finger, with soft bones you can eat. While you can eat them fresh, most people know anchovies from pizza toppings or Caesar salad dressing, where they've been preserved in salt and oil.

Anchovies have an intense, salty flavor that many people either love or avoid entirely. When cooked into sauces or dressings, they add a deep, savory taste without making the food taste fishy. In fact, many people who claim to dislike anchovies have probably enjoyed them without knowing it: that rich flavor in a really good Caesar dressing? That's anchovies doing their work.

These little fish have been important to cooking for thousands of years. Ancient Romans made a fermented anchovy sauce called garum that they used the way we use salt or soy sauce today. Fishers catch millions of tons of anchovies each year, not just for people to eat but also to feed to farmed fish and to make fertilizer. Despite their small size, anchovies play an outsized role in ocean food chains: larger fish, seabirds, and marine mammals all depend on anchovy schools for food.