Cod!

From my Daily Review of books and articles I have highlighted, provided by Readwise:

This one made me smile when it came up on my “Sunday Favorites” this week. I grew up in southeastern Massachusetts; not exactly on the coast but close enough that we went to Cape Cod a lot. For many summers we spent a week in the summer with friends who had a couple of cabins (houses actually) on Sagamore beach. I remember very fondly those summers, walking a couple of miles to the canal, biking on back roads, and playing in the sun and sand.

Cape Cod is of course named for the fish that was so abundant on George’s Bank, which was part of a larger complex of fisheries dominated by the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. The Cod was so important to early Massachusetts that there is a nearly five-foot-long “Sacred Cod” effigy hanging in the congressional chamber in the Statehouse. The Grand Banks fisheries were so important they were mentioned in international treaties at the conclusions of both the Seven Years (French and Indian) War and the American Revolution.

Kurlansky does a really good job in this book, explaining the importance of cod in world history. Once it was dried (the Portuguese and/or Basques seem to have improved on the earlier Scandinavian technique by adding salt), cod was so stable and nutritious that it enabled longer sea voyages. It was so plentiful that it also became a staple food in Europe. Bacalao is still the national dish of Portugal. When we were in Iceland last summer, we visited a fishing town called Grindavik. Everyone else had fresh cod for lunch. I had Bacalao for the first time; it was quite good.

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World is just one of many “commodity histories” in Kurlansky’s catalog. Some others include Salt, The Big Oyster, Milk, Salmon, The Core of an Onion, and a couple of upcoming books on cheesecake and lobsters. He has also written a history of the Basques that connects to the cod story, as well as several books on war and non-violence, the year 1968, the Caribbean, and the New England fishing industry and Clarence Birdseye. The writing is very engaging, even when the author goes out on a limb a bit with his interpretations or historical claims. Best of all, Kurlansky seems to have an eye for the unusual and a perspective that readers find attractive. Lots to learn in these popular books!