The Moeca and What Remains of a Venetian Lagoon
Interview with Domenico Rossi - moecante - on climate change, blue crab, and the slow disappearance of fishing in the northern lagoon.
This story belongs to those who live the lagoon every day, with their bodies, even before their words.
On a grey afternoon in April, in Torcello, I met Domenico Rossi - moecante - a fisherman who catches moeche, the small green crabs of the Venetian lagoon at the moment of molting, when they briefly become completely soft. It is one of the oldest and most demanding fishing practices in Venice. A craft built on technique, silence, gestures, and precision, passed down over time and now at risk of disappearing.
He took me by boat to the island of San Pietrino, not far from Torcello. Around us, a lagoon in spring, a leaden sky, low clouds resting on the horizon, the shifting green of blooming gardens, and that dense, briny smell that enters your clothes and stays on your skin, the way real places do.
His workplace, what I immediately thought of as the fisherman’s studio, is an unexpected, welcoming, almost domestic space. Antique Venetian furniture, books, nautical charts of the lagoon. Everything speaks of layered knowledge, built over time. Outside, the tools of the trade: hanging nets, ready to be used, traps submerged and aligned in the water, boats, essential working instruments. All surrounded by a wide garden with fruit trees and a suspended quietness, as if removed from everything else.
It is here that we began to talk: about moeche, lagoon fishing, climate change, and the blue crab, the invader that in recent years has radically altered this fragile balance.
When did you realize you would become a fisherman?
I have always been a fisherman, because I was born into it. I started going out on the boat with my father when I was six. Today I’m fifty-five, and I’m still here.
I was born in Burano, and at the time fishing was almost inevitable. Nearly every family on the island were fishermen. The alternative was Murano, working in glass factories. I went there for a while too. Even then, twenty-five years ago, you could already feel that fishing was changing, that maybe it was coming to an end. My father didn’t want me to choose this path. But then glass went into crisis too, and I came back to the only thing I really loved. The only thing I knew how to do: fishing.
What was fished in the lagoon before, and what is fished today?
In the past, the lagoon had everything: eels, sand smelts, shrimp, sole, cuttlefish, flounder. Now we’re left catching only blue crab. It’s been two years since I last made a moeca. That was my work, I only did that. But now, because of climate change, pollution, and especially the blue crab, which was the final blow, here in the northern lagoon the native crab has completely disappeared.
What is a moeca?
The moeca is the small native green crab of the Venetian lagoon at the moment of molting, when it sheds its old shell and remains completely soft and tender for a few hours. It is in this brief phase that it is selected and consumed. Traditionally, it is eaten whole, fried, and served with soft polenta. Today, moeca has become a prized rarity.
How is the moeca caught?
All lagoon crabs are different, some grow earlier, some later. So they do not all molt at the same time. There were nights when we would catch as much as 400–500 kilos of crabs in a single outing, and out of those only about 10 kilos would be selected and placed in containers in the water, waiting for them to molt. All the others were returned to the water for the following season, because they would molt later.
The work of the moecante, besides being one of the oldest trades still remaining in the lagoon, has zero environmental impact. The fishing system is based on fixed nets stretched out across the lagoon, creating a kind of barrier. All the fish that encounter this barrier cannot pass through it, so they follow it to the end, where traps are placed. Once inside the traps, the fish cannot escape. Every night we have to go out and empty them. Our work consisted of very intensive harvesting, as I was saying, with sometimes large quantities. But above all, we had to select the crabs to keep, those that were about to molt. Imagine sorting through 300–400 kilos of crabs just to choose the right ones. It was an enormous job, requiring precision and patience, every single day. At night we would go out around 4:30, 5 in the morning. We would pull up the traps, empty them, and then bring everything back to land. Once there, the crabs were sorted one by one. We used a kind of slide on the boat, the ones ready to molt were collected and set aside, while the rest were returned to the water in the canal.
It was extraordinary work, extremely long and demanding, and with no impact on the lagoon. Today, here in the Northern Lagoon, moeca can no longer be found, for various reasons: climate change, pollution, and the final blow, the blue crab.
Where do the moeche we find in restaurants these days come from?
A few moeche are still left, and they mainly come from the Southern Lagoon.
The ones you eat now here in Venice are very expensive, you can find them at around €150 per kilo. Just the other day they were auctioned at the fish market for €180 per kilo wholesale. It’s a traditional dish, part of the local culinary heritage, usually eaten fried and served with soft polenta.
There are a couple of variations, but for me the best is simply floured and fried. On the mainland, they tend to put them alive into beaten egg, wait for them to absorb it well, and then fry them, but that makes them too heavy. They already have a strong, distinctive flavor, so for me there’s no need to add egg.
Moeca has never cost this much, not like now, when it has become truly rare.
They used to be harvested in autumn and spring. There was once abundance, and on average, until about 10–12 years ago, they sold for €18–20 per kilo, at most €25. This year, instead, they have never dropped below €100.
Let’s talk about the blue crab and climate change, how has the lagoon changed?
Today, in the Northern Lagoon, only blue crab is being caught. Nothing else.
According to data from the fish market and from the San Marco cooperative, of which I am a member, native species have declined by around 80% over the past ten years. There is almost nothing left. Even the gò, once so emblematic of Burano, has become extremely rare. Some species can still be found in the Southern Lagoon, including moeche. The Southern Lagoon is deeper, more open, and more directly connected to the sea, with fewer salt marshes and fewer islands.
Here, everything is different. The seabed is shallow. We used to fish in 120–130 centimeters of water at high tide. At low tide, in some areas, even a boat could not pass. And then there are the rivers, the Sile used to reach all the way here. Today, climate change has altered everything. Rainfall used to be distributed throughout the year; now it comes all at once, within minutes. That water runs off the mainland and pours into the lagoon, carrying everything with it, heavy metals, discharge, substances that were once slowly absorbed and now arrive all at once, in concentrated form.
By now, around 80% of fish comes from aquaculture. The valli da pesca still exist, but today they are used mainly for hunting - ducks, woodcock - because it is more profitable. Fish farming focuses on sea bream and sea bass, predatory species that are more resilient and better able to adapt. Everything else has diminished. And so yes, today, in the Northern Lagoon, almost only blue crab is being caught.
What remains today of fishing in the lagoon?
Once, Burano was a vast community of fishermen. There were not only those who fished moeche, there were the noveanti, the bragotanti, those who went out with the tartane. Each had their own specialization, because every type of fishing requires its own technique. It is not an easy job, as people tend to think.
Now everything has changed. Take clam fishing, for example, you no longer need years of experience. After just a few outings, you already understand how the engine works, you drop an iron cage and pull it back up. It is no longer a matter of skill. And then there are the major issues affecting the lagoon. The disappearance of fish depends on climatic factors, pollution, and non-native species that have arrived in recent years. For instance, there are now ctenophores, a type of jellyfish, the so-called sea walnut, which consume all the nutrients in the water. Nothing is left for the other fish. When the warm season begins, they clog the nets and create conditions of anoxia, a lack of oxygen. The nets fill up, become blocked, and nothing can get inside anymore.
The blue crab is another emblem of all this. It reproduces rapidly and is difficult to control. The only real solution would be intensive fishing. But here another problem arises, we do not have the infrastructure to process it. In the United States it is caught and consumed, here, it is not. There is something in Marcon, something beginning in Scardovari, but it is not enough.
And so a paradox emerges, we have a resource, a protein available in the lagoon, and we do not use it. It could be processed, transformed, canned. If there is a shortage of work, even for fishermen, the blue crab could become an important resource. It was talked about extensively, and now no one speaks about it anymore. Fishing is rarely discussed. In countries like Tunisia and Turkey, they have built entire economies around it, providing work for many people. Here, everything is more complicated. The problem is time and bureaucracy, there, things are done in a matter of days; here, it takes years, and there is no clear legislation.
And yet, it could provide employment. And the blue crab could be a protein accessible to everyone.
I say goodbye to Domenico Rossi, thanking him for welcoming me into his space and for the generosity of his words. What I have written here is only a fragment of a much longer conversation.
And yet, one sentence stayed with me:
When I was a child, in Burano, there were a hundred of us just for moeca fishing.
This year, there are eight left.
I hope my son will not do this job.
Perhaps today it would be important to truly listen to fishermen, and understand, together with them, how the lagoon can remain a resource for life and work.
I wanted to close this story with a recipe for fried moeche. I searched at the Rialto market, spoke with fishmongers, asked fishermen I know. Nothing. Even restaurants would not sell them to me, the price is too high, and moeche have become increasingly rare.
So this year, no recipe. Only the story of what remains.
Laura Riolfatto
Wine storyteller & sommelier
🔗 laurariolfatto.com
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