Shellfishes are part of the Italian culinary tradition. In particular there are some species which become main ingredients of many local dishes. Mollusks are a product which acquires different shapes according to the class they belong to.

The consumption of bivalve mollusks dates back to the Paleolithic era when the first human beings were eating oysters. Thanks to Romans it is taken the first cooking techniques, even though they were used to keep them under salt. In the Middle Ages these preparation techniques were refined in particular by monks.