Cod was a major staple of cooking, cuisine, and food in general throughout the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Salted cod was a favored way of preparing the fish and many recipes have developed based on cod's significance during these times. The import of cod was a major source of cheap nourishment and proved to be an important dietary staple.
"He said it must be Friday, the day he could not sell anything except servings of a fish known in Castile as pollock or in Andalusia as salt cod" -Don Quixote
Uses of Cod
- Head is more flavorful than body, especially throat, called a tongue
- Small disks on either side of the tongue, called cheeks
- Air bladder against the backbone used for filling or releasing gas to adjust swimming depth is used for making isinglass and is in some glues
- Air bladders are also fried and/or used in chowders and stews
- Roe (eggs) are eaten, fresh or smoked
- Female gonads called britches are fried and eaten like air bladder
- Icelanders used to eat the sperm in whey, Japanese still do
- Stomachs, tripe, and livers are eaten
- Liver oil highly valued for vitamins
- Icelanders eat stomachs with liver and boil them until tender and eat them like sausages
- Also known as Liver-Muggie or Crappin-Muggie in Scottish Highlands
- Cod tripe in Mediterranean
- Skin can be eaten or cured as leather (Iceland for eating)
- Remaining organs and bones serve as great fertilizer
- Icelanders soften bones in sour milk and eat them
"Life is saltfish" -Halldor Laxness, Reykjavik, 1930s
How Cod Affected 16th, 17th, 18th Century Diets
- As cod was numerous, it is no wonder on how many different dishes came about it.
- A favorite way of preparing cod throughout all of Europe was to salt the cod, as it gave a nice taste to the somewhat boring white meat.
- The cod is completely edible so no parts would be spared, even eating the sperm and head of cod was considered a delicious meal
- Lots of protein per fish, particularly, after the fish is dried
- Virtually no fat
- Great source of vitamins
- Atlantic cod was the most popular type of cod at the time
- Inexpensive food due to abundance of cod
- Unlike other fish, salted cod did not spoil quickly, thus people were able to save money not only by buying cheaply but saving money on restocking their food supply
- Since the Catholic Church declared no meat on Fridays out of respect for Good Friday, cod would be the go to on Friday nights for the average peasants as cod was not considered meat
- Cod became a religious icon,
- British lightly salted cod became popular as Britain did not have a large supply of salt unlike other Western European nations
- French who ate salted cod, or salt products in general, were starting to be taxed by the gabelle for an easy way for the government to make money
- Essential part of New England cooking as the northern colonies, especially Massachusetts, relied on cod in the beginning of the colony's existence to sustain themselves
- Less people became malnourished overall as cod was a fantastic source of nutrition while at a cheap cost
- Much of the West Indies', Eastern Canadian territories', French, Portuguese, Italian, German, Icelandic, Greenlandic, British, New England's, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, and Polish cuisine has some origin or special importance placed on cod
- Cod was such a major food source that when England prohibited Massachusetts trading cod with the West Indies, who mainly got their supplies from New England, mainly Massachusetts, a great famine occurred
- In Jamaica, 15,000 slaves died of hunger between 1780 and 1787 due to lack of cod to feed slaves
"'The agriculture just collapses, and cod becomes very, very important,' says Pálsdóttir. 'It's the main thing that keeps people alive.'"
How to dry cod:
Hang cod in winter until it loses four-fifths of weight and becomes a durable wood like plank
For flavor, heavily salt the cod for better taste
Enjoy!
Hang cod in winter until it loses four-fifths of weight and becomes a durable wood like plank
For flavor, heavily salt the cod for better taste
Enjoy!
"The towns peter out into flat rusty-brown lava-fields, scattered shacks surrounded by wire-fencing, stockfish drying on washing-lines and a few white hens. Further down the coast, the lava is dotted with what look like huge laundry-baskets; these are really compact heaps of drying fish covered with tarpaulin." W.H. Auden and Louis MacNiece, Letters from Iceland, 1967
Famous National Cod Dishes
- Fresh cod, Jance, Roasted Fresh Salt Cod (France)
- Cockles of codling, cod's head (England)
- Chowder, Boiled Salt Codfish Dinner with Vegetables and Pork Scraps, (New England)
- Mira Bacalao (Puerto Rico)
- Salt Cod and Rice (Caribbean)
- Stewed codfish, (American South)
- Boiled Roe, (Ireland)
- Fresh cod with mustard sauce (Denmark)
- Stuffed Cod Roe (Iceland)
- Salted Cod Sounds (Newfoundland)
- Communist-style Salt Cod, Spanish Flag Salt Cod (Spain)