Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World.
Mark Kurlansky. Walker Publishing, New York, 1997. 294 pp., illus. (ISBN 0-8027-1326-2 hardcover)
Review by Karlene Schwartz, Dept. of Biology, UMass Boston; Science Writer
In Cod, author Kurlansky tells the tale of cod fisheries and the role of cod in world history. Fishermen from the Viking era to the present roved the Atlantic, catching cod in vast quantities for 1,000 years. Cod commerce on the four continents that bound the Atlantic was the most profitable fish business in history. Now this handsome fish faces extinction.
The book begins in the skiff of three fishermen from Petty Harbor, Newfoundland, who catch, tag, sex, and age cod to measure the cod stock. Before the present fishing moratorium, the day's haul would have been 2-3,000 pounds of cod. Today they catch forty cod averaging four pounds, only three of spawning age.
Between 985 and 1011, Vikings hauled cod from icy seas off Iceland, Labrador, Greenland, Newfoundland and possibly Nova Scotia and Maine. By the 9th Century, Basques, fishing in these same waters, traded their cod catch in northern Europe but kept their fishing grounds secret. Basque cod, preserved with Mediterranean salt, kept better than dried, unsalted codfish. In 1497 Giovanni Caboto, searching for a northern spice route, landed instead on Newfoundland's rocky coast where he observed abundant cod offshore. Thirty-seven years later, Jacques Cartier came upon a fleet of some 1000 Basque fishing boats in the mouth of the St. Lawrence River--the Basque secret was exposed.
The avid search for cod led to the settlement of Massachusetts. In 1614 John Smith sailed to map the New England coast and returned to Europe with a hold full of cod. Shortly thereafter, the Pilgrims applied for a grant in Plymouth, Massachusetts, intending to fish. Fortunately, native Naumkeags (Naumkeag means "fishing place") shared their cod fishing expertise. Kurlansky salts his tale with lively quotes; "The aboundence of sea fish are almost beyond believing" (Francis Higgenson, Salem Pilgrim, 1629). By 1640 Salem, Dorchester, and Marblehead had fisheries and the Massachusetts Bay Colony traded 300,000 cod, many caught inshore during winter spawning. Massachusetts' waters churned with the largest and meatiest cod. A six-foot long 211-pounder was pulled in on a line in 1895.
The finest cod was traded in Spain for wine, fruit, and other southern European goods. Cod linked Massachusetts to Africa and then to the West Indies. Massachusetts imported Caribbean sugar, molasses, salt, tobacco, spices, cotton and indigo. Boston rum and salt cod were shipped to Africa in trade for slaves. Slaves were transported to West Indian plantations where their diet centered on New England salt cod. Britain's attempt to tax this molasses trade was one of the incentives leading to the American Revolution. Kurlansky also fleshes out the role of cod in subsequent wars and other political struggles to the present.
The author has worked on commercial fishing boats. He does not romanticize that harsh life. Today a cod fishing moratorium is in place but universal denial of overfishing by nearly everyone involved may drive cod the way of the passenger pigeon. As was the case with the extinct pigeon, temporary reappearances of the migratory cod does not necessarily indicate a population rebound. In picturesque Gloucester, home of Gorton's seafood industry, cod-theme tourism may replace cod fishing. Cod farming as an alternative to wild fishing is viewed skeptically by many scientists; escaped farmed fish may have a detrimental impact on wild genetic diversity.
The natural history of cod is woven through Kurlansky's book. Adults are omnivorous; they feed on mollusks in the Gulf of Maine, on capelin, squid and herring in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. A female cod 102 centimeters (40 inches) long may live 30 years and can release 3 million eggs each spawning. Newly hatched cod feed on phytoplankton, later on zooplankton, later on krill. The author states that because cod has thick scales that are impervious to diseases and rough handling, it is an ideal commercial fish either for catching from the wild or for fish farming.
The subject of this book often ends up on a plate. Food lore and related cultural practices about cod and its cousins--haddock, pollock, whiting, and hake--are illustrated with recipes, and these recipes are on pages whose margins are marked by bars of tiny codfish. From lips to tail tips, all parts of cod are eaten salted or fresh: lips, milt (sperm), roe, heads, muscle meat, tripe, and cod liver oil. The skin may be roasted and eaten or cured as leather. Bones are softened in sour milk and eaten. The swim bladder is rendered to make isinglass. The sound (swim bladder) is stuffed with cod liver and eaten as sausage. Vikings gnawed pieces of dried cod and chewed it like hardtack. But Icelanders say, "We don't eat money [cod]"--they prefer to eat haddock.
Cod would serve equally well as a supplemental ecology, marine biology or history text. Readers will appreciate the extensive references and thorough index. As an object lesson in the limits of human impact on natural selection, Cod delights as it instructs with text, handsome illustrations, and apt quotations.
"Life is saltfish", said Icelandic author Halldór Laxness in 1930. Now this must be rephrased, "Life WAS saltfish."
