Product Description

Wars have been fought over it, revolutions have been spurred by it, national diets have been based on it, economies have depended on it, and the settlement of North America was driven by it. Cod, it turns out, is the reason Europeans set sail across the Atlantic, and it is the only reason they could. What did the Vikings eat in icy Greenland and on the five expeditions to America recorded in the Icelandic sagas? Cod -- frozen and dried in the frosty air, then broken into pieces and eaten like hardtack. What was the staple of the medieval diet? Cod again, sold salted by the Basques, an enigmatic people with a mysterious, unlimited supply of cod.

Cod is a charming tour of history with all its economic forces laid bare and a fish story embellished with great gastronomic detail. It is also a tragic tale of environmental failure, of depleted fishing stocks where once the cod's numbers were legendary. In this deceptively whimsical biography of a fish, Mark Kurlansky brings a thousand years of human civilization into captivating focus.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #102507 in Books
• Published on: 1998-06-16
• Released on: 1998-06-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Amazon.com
You probably enjoy eating codfish, but reading about them? Mark Kurlansky has written a fabulous book--well worth your time--about a fish that probably has mattered more in human history than any other. The cod helped inspire the discovery and exploration of North America. It had a profound impact upon the economic development of New England and eastern Canada from the earliest times. Today, however, overfishing is a constant threat. Kurlansky sprinkles his well-written and occasionally humorous history with interesting asides on the possible origin of the word codpiece and dozens of fish recipes. Sometimes a book on an offbeat or neglected subject really makes the grade. This is one of them.

From Library Journal
In this engaging history of a "1000-year fishing spree," Kurlansky (A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny, LJ 1/92) traces the relationship of cod fishery to such historical eras and events as medieval Christianity and Christian observances; international conflicts between England and Germany over Icelandic cod; slavery, the molasses trade, and the dismantling of the British Empire; and, the evolution of a sophisticated fishing industry in New England. Kurlansky relates this information in an entertaining style while providing accurate scientific information. The story does not have a happy ending, however. The cod fishery is in trouble, deep trouble, as the Atlantic fish has been fished almost to extinction. Quoting a scientist from the Woods Hole Biological Laboratory, Massachusetts, Kurlansky notes that to forecast the recovery of the cod population is to gamble: "There is only one known calculation: 'When you get to zero, it will produce zero.'" Highly recommended for all general collections.?Mary J. Nickum, Bozeman, Mont.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
When something is said to have "changed the world," it is either a technological innovation or an article of trade. The North Atlantic cod is the latter, which may come as news nowadays, when it is best known as having virtually vanished from the Grand Banks, ruining the once robust fishing economies of maritime Canada and New England. Kurlansky introduces the delectable white-fleshed fish's long history by taking us out with some Newfoundland fishermen now employed in surveying the remaining cod population. But then he backtracks to tell an epic of transoceanic trade. Cod was for 1,000 years a commodity central to Europe's development and, through Europe, to development in North America, the West Indies, and Africa. Indeed, the Basques of northwestern Iberia and then the Norse discovered America well before Columbus when they probed westward, fishing for cod. Later, the fish became essential to slavery: the best dried cod was exchanged in Europe for goods to be traded for humans in Africa, while lower grades, still highly nutritious, were sold to feed West Indian plantation slaves. That is just some of the grand-scale history Kurlansky relays with maximum readability, plenty of handsome illustrations, and a 40-page appendix of superlatively annotated recipes. Ray Olson

Customer Reviews

Interesting and informative , but ...
This book is another interesting and informative, but narrow subject history book of the type this author prefers to write. In some sections it poses as a cookbook. I was irritated by the amount of text actually devoted to Codfish recipes, when what I purchased was a historical type book . The author has a very good writing style. The book covers the early history of some cultures that took advantage of this bottom dwelling fish prized for its unique white meat. The Codfish affected these early cultures as it still does today, where regional and national economies are suffering from the impact of worldwide diminishing Codfish stocks in spite of some sporadic conservation measures.
This reader recommends ignoring the all too frequent codfish recipes interspersed with the good historical information. This book makes for a fine compact interesting history of man's relationship with the Codfish. Ignore the historical section and I suppose it would be a passable Codfish cookbook.

What a dish!
This book has to be one of the most entertaining history texts in, well, history. I couldn't put it down. What a joy!

Great fish story
If you enjoy popular nonfiction such as The Perfect Storm, Longitude, or A Walk in the Woods, you'll enjoy this book. The connecting thread is that in each of these, the author uses an interesting narrative angle to describe historical trends and scientific facts without being overly pedantic or dry.