Sand we think of Penelope, we imagine a woman bent over the loom, far from the sea that took her husband away from her in an incomprehensible war like all wars. It makes and undoes a plot destined to never be finished. She probably doesn’t even like the sea and lives on an island. But the Penelopes we are talking about today (sorry for the plural) got on boats and became fishermen. Nobody tells them, yet they are there. They see climate change, lagoons changing face, alien species such as the blue crab, killer algae. They live among fish markets, kitchens, ports, historic cooperatives. Ilaria Potenza, journalist and doctor, and Carlotta Santolini, marine biologistthey left for three months on Eva, the sailing boat they had borrowed from a fisherman who, having lost his wife (Eva, in fact), also lost the desire to sail. They set out precisely to meet them, from the Po delta to the Ionian Sea, from the Aeolian Islands to the Ligurian Levant. They found them, photographed them, and described them in a podcast. Now yes, we know who I am.
The book, between reportage, logbook and scientific dissemination, makes them emerge from silence with a symbolic title, Penelope’s salt (Mursia)which is not only that of the sea. It is the salt of wisdom that returns from the sea to the land.
Blue crab chef Chiara Pavan
Therefore the journey begins with a non-fisherwoman who has something to do with it: Chiara Pavan, chef of Venissa (Mazzorbo), one Michelin starknows as much about the Venetian lagoon as anyone who has cast their nets in the last twenty years. Was the first chef to use blue crab in cookingwas not afraid of its beautiful color which recalls sustainability (the blue economy), yet it scares.
He treats it as a resource, makes it a delicacy: “Blue Crab and Blackthorn Blossom Toast”, or even “Millet, Blue Crab Chawanmushi and Fermented Carrots”. He has been working in the lagoon for eight years and, if at the beginning he found lots of eels, lately there are none, as I learnedAnd. «This ecosystem” he explains “is a point of observation of climate change: the effects are more visible precisely because it is a closed place.”
The cover of the book “Penelope’s salt” (Mursia)
The clam fishermen of the Po Delta
We start from Venice. First stop, the Po Delta between canals, lagoons and islets, where nature has created a unique landscape, a land suspended between the river and the seawhere the sweetness of the water mixes with the salty force of the waves. «The Po and the Adige meet right here. The seabed is shallow, full of sediment brought by the waterways, a precious environment for many forms of life” says Carlotta. «When the sea manages to make its way inland, it forms large expanses of brackish and shallow water, where mussels and clams are bred and fished. And here we meet women.”
Giovanna, blonde, blue eyes, strong, muscular, and Oscarina, dark, thin as a reed, are fishermen from the Po Delta. They pull up the rasca, a kind of rake, the traditional tool of clam collectors. I am a pioneer. They had to defend themselves from rumors and skepticism: they gave them up for dead from the start. But they did it. «A joke, a good laugh and off we go!» jokes Oscarina who learned to drive the boat and today, after 19 years, she can proudly claim her job.
It’s hard to fish for clams. It takes a lot of arm strength. The bags weigh approximately 70-80 kilos, and must be distributed in baskets, 25 to 30 each! Anything but the weaker sex.
Oscarina and Giovanna, fishermen from the Po Delta (photo Carlotta Santolini)
Saura, who tamed an eel
Then there is Saura, Carlotta’s grandmother, 94 years old. For 30 years, after the fish market, he worked in the kitchen in the “Dallo Zio” restaurant in Rimini. He saved an eel, he gave it a name, Nina, he tamed it: «If I called her by name, she went up the large tank and came to the surface, they wanted to study her. A waiter killed her by mistake.”
Remember that once upon a time turtles and dolphins stranded near San Giuliano beach were also sold at the market. Shocked by the “crying of the dolphins” in the fish shop, she stopped working there: “There was so much ignorance and so much misery, and only when we realized that these animals were like us, we no longer sold or ate them».
In Puglia, fisherwomen to feel free
And the journey continues. In Puglia, here is Barbara Orlando, 52 years old, on the “Sparviere”, the family gozzo: «Today I am a boat leader, a motor sailor, and also president of a small cooperative. In winter we catch cuttlefish, octopus, red mullet, sea bream and snapper. In the summer we dedicate ourselves to fishing tourism.” He confesses: «The sea enters you. It gives me a sense of freedom that I wouldn’t feel in any other job. This is the oldest profession in the world! Is it also suitable for young people? Certain! My son, who has sea water in his veins, bought his own fishing boat at just 17 years old!
A sea bream farm in the Gargano
The only two Sicilian fishermen
In Sicily there are Giusy and Antonella Donato. Grandfather Marco, a historic fisherman from Ganzirri (Messina), having no male heirs, left his company to them. Giusy, 35 years old, and Antonella, 38, are the only two Sicilian fishermen. I am “I Mancuso”, (from my grandfather’s surname). Their passionate story smacks of a return to the origins, of waves and wind.
They go to sea with the six meter boat “Pina”. They wake up at four in the morning, decide where to lower the nets and make noise by throwing stones tied to ropes into the water to attract fish. “It’s not for women!” they told us, «you will never be able to resist. They were wrong.”
The La Spezia muscolaia, peasant of the sea
The only musclewoman in the area, Nadia Maggioncalda, lives in La Spezia. Mussel culture dates back to 1887, and it has been handed down from father to son, so it is surprising to discover a “peasant of the sea”. Nadia is part of the Spezzini Miticulturists’ Cooperative, a real enterprise. He would never have thought of such a job, but then “the meeting” came. With the sea, and with the man who would become her husband thirty years ago. He still loves them both.
Sally Field with the octopus Marcellus in a scene from the film Luminous Creatures (Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2026).
The magic of contact with an octopus
However, images and emotions are also fished for. Carlotta Santolini dived deep in Scilla, Calabria, and something happened there: «A small octopus materialized in front of me. I held out my hand. To my surprise, the octopus climbed onto it, accompanying me for ten minutes, as if it completely trusted me. Fascinated, I removed the glove to feel its suction cups attach to my fingers. A unique sensation, almost a hug. My friends laugh when I say I don’t eat octopus because it’s my favorite animalbut it’s the truth! I find him to be extraordinarily intelligent, as many studies show. It is capable of escaping from aquariums, opening plastic bottles, unscrewing glass jars, or building shelters with objects found on the seabed.”
And the Netflix film hadn’t come out yet Luminous Creaturesfrom the bestseller by Shelby Van Pelt, with a moving Sally Field, story of the elderly, brilliant octopus Marcellus who takes “walks” outside his prison tank, and in the end helps humans find each other again. It is he who defines them as “luminous creatures”. Maybe Carlotta’s octopus thought so too.