Let’s take a step back in time and see how ancient sailors used to dine at the port after long voyages, a sort of off-board self-service

Mooring your boat at Marina Porto Antico will not only give you the opportunity to discover nearby stretches of coastline and glimpses of nature with incomparable colors and fragrances, but the piers of Porto Antico exude history! They are filled with tales of the sea enriched by the lives of skilled sailors and intelligent merchants who have shaped Genova’s identity over the centuries.

But what happened on these piers in the past?

Today we tell you a piece of history of these docks; a profession now disappeared that characterized port life from the late Middle Ages until 1960.

Floating taverns, the most fashionable “off-board self-service”

So, let’s take a step back over a hundred years, when every corner of the port echoed with the calls of the catrài/cadrài: floating taverns set up on gozzi or small barges with characteristic colors. In short, true off-board self-service establishments dedicated to conviviality, good food and good wine.

Catrài is a term that would derive from the English “To cater”→”Catering“.

These floating street food establishments (or perhaps we should say navigating Sea Food), offered meals to sailors on sailing ships and anchored vessels that came from all over the world: not everyone, in fact, could disembark from the ships to go to a tavern, and this is where the “cadrai” came in, who, navigating the waters of Genova’s port, crowded with ships – sailing vessels – gozzi and barges, shouting “He! Oh! Gh’è o cadrâi!”, covered every moment of the day with different menus that were hoisted directly aboard the ships. At the center of their boats dominated large steaming copper cauldrons!

The food actually came from real taverns; the most creative restaurateurs sent their employees to anchored ships to cover the entire market target!

The menu:

Already early in the morning they offered breakfast based on focaccia, white wine and coffee.
Then returning at noon with stockfish, tripe, steaming buridde, capponadda, savory pies, but especially el menestron!
A “terrestrial” dish, much appreciated on board by sailors after long diets of stockfish and hardtack.

Advertising worthy of the best food marketing of our days!

True precursors of food marketing; it seems that they cleverly sailed with their gozzo upwind of the sailing ships to be announced by the fragrance of basil “do menestron”. Thus intoxicating the sailors, who in abstinence after long voyages had no choice but to be taken by the throat.

It’s no coincidence, in fact, that our minestrone has traveled around the world: it was thanks to the sailors who made it known everywhere.

A true corporation

The profession of cadraio was subject to specific regulations: it was subject to five-year concessions, granted by the Port Consortium: to be part of the corporation it was necessary to have certain requirements, including the shape and color of the boats, one had to adhere to scheduled hours (one could practice from dawn to dusk), have at least one experienced sailor on board, and respect precedence with the competition.

In competitions to join the order, priority was given to sons of the trade and wives and daughters of cadrai who had passed away, provided that an experienced sailor was always present on the gozzo. This was indeed one of the few activities that women could also participate in at the time.

Among the most famous “Caterers” we find in the annals: Robicche, Ruscin, Campua, Dria.

Some of them even became reference points for vessel mooring over time!

Not just off-board self-service: here are the other dock professions

The focal point of commercial and other life, the port of Genova has for centuries teemed with professionals of the most diverse natures: from chiattaioli, who moved goods from ships to piers, to master carpenters who built and repaired wooden piers, to the famous camalli (stevedores): the true soul of the docks.

From “lega balle” (who prepared goods to be loaded onto ships), to picchetin, who hammered ship keels to verify their integrity.
to Barcaroli, whose gozzi transported luggage and passengers from land to anchored ships; they boast the oldest history: their corporation originated in the fifteenth century as “Ars Barcharoliorum” – until the mid-nineteenth century, it was the barcaroli themselves who managed most port services, including mooring.

The profession of boatmen and cadrài was then flanked by another special category of workers: linguists.

Most ships often needed the assistance of an interpreter who would collaborate with the captain in carrying out the complex formalities required by port authorities for entry and stay in the Genoese port (payment of anchorage taxes, health inspections, etc.), the activity carried out by the so-called “linguists” was certainly not of little importance.

Connected to the notable increase in international traffic involving the Ligurian port, in fact, around the end of the 18th century about half of the ships arriving in Genova came from Atlantic ports, the North Sea and the Baltic!

Linguists had to be at the pier every morning before sunrise, waiting for the arrival of foreign ships.

This is only a small part of the History that has passed through here on our docks. Genova and its port are a true treasure to discover. We await you!