Colatura di alici is very much in use in the west…
replyI found the 'not common' comment in the original article quite confounding. It is somewhat specific, yes But the general sense "anchovies and anchovy paste adds umami" is really strongly established. So it's become much more specific, but it still exists.
replyI wouldn’t imagine most people consider anchovy paste a sauce?
reply"sauce" is such an imprecise concept. Fish Sauce is a condiment. Anchovy paste is often used as a condiment/additive e.g. on a ceaser salad, or to perk up a pizza.
replyFish sauce is added to soups, to dishes during cooking as well as at the end. Dressing a papaya salad with a fish sauce heavy dressing is only one way of using it, we use it to make dipping sauces.
We also use Anchovy paste as an ingredient in other dipping sauces, and dressings for salads. And we add it to meat dishes much as worcestershire sauce is: given its an ingredient along with Tamarind, it's much the same thing.
In Britain, it's a posh paste to spread on toast, much as we use Vegemite or Marmite. Anchovy toast was an afternoon tea thing.
I think, it's pretty sauce like. If not, I think it's a fundamental ingredient of sauces people reach over to use directly.