In the middle of the nineteenth century, a young Catalan man from Blanes is sent to Galicia to manage a small anchovy salting factory owned by one of the many Catalans who have settled there searching for anchovies, which have become extinct in the Mediterranean Sea. As a result of a very disappointing love affair and the prevailing political circumstances, he stays in Galicia for the rest of his life and ends up setting up his own anchovy factory. His eldest son must struggle like his father did, but his objective will be to transform the traditional salting business into the large-scale canning of anchovies; the industrial engine of Galicia in the 20th Century.