Cod summary

You probably like your fish prepared in a certain way, be it fried, steamed or grilled. But when it comes to cod, many countries, especially those in southern Europe, are traditionalists. They simply eat it salted.

This tradition dates back to the Basque people, the earliest fishers to catch cod. They would preserve the cod by salting it – a technique that turned out to be key in exploiting this invaluable resource.

The Basques are a relatively small population of people from modern-day northwest Spain; they’ve always been independent, maintaining their own language, sports and culture.

They originally set sail for North America in search of whale meat, which was in high demand in Europe. But, along the way, they discovered cod. They cured this fish with salt, thereby furnishing themselves with food on their long journeys.

In Europe, the only places to find cod were in Scandinavia and Iceland, and since the Basques were never seen there, nobody knew where they caught their cod. The European Vikings were already dry-curing their cod, but the salt that the Basques added to the process made the fish last longer and taste even better.

While salted codfish provided food for the Basques as they continued their North American journey along the coast of what is now the United States and Canada, it also made them wealthy back home.

Since the Catholic Church didn’t allow people to eat meat on days of fasting, people chose fish instead, and the Basques made a lot of money selling cod to Catholics.

Also to their advantage, the Basques were the only ones who knew where to find cod along the coast of North America. They managed to keep this a secret for a while – no easy feat, considering how profitable cod could be.

But it wasn’t long before the secret got out and conflict over the fish began to brew.