Name: Cod
Rating: 4.3 (45 reviews)
Author: Mark Kurlansky

What’s in it for me? Get hooked on cod.

Over the last few decades, cod has become a luxury fish, often served as fillets in fancy restaurants. There was a time, however, when cod was a humble and inexpensive fish. Native to the Atlantic Ocean, the cod can measure up to two meters in length and weigh as much as 100 kilograms. It’s not difficult to catch, often staying in shallow waters close to the coast. So what makes the story of this large, vulnerable fish so fascinating?

Well, for one thing, without the cod, many a long sea journey would have been much more difficult. But most of all, it’s such a gripping story because the cod, once in abundance, is now almost extinct. It’s the story of conflict over food resources and how modernization can have negative effects on both ecology and society. It’s a plunge into the deep waters of human food history.

In these blinks, you’ll find out

how salt made cod a seafarers staple;
why the cod had a significant role for the Catholic Church; and
which tiny nation changed maritime and fishing laws to protect a valuable resource.

This is a Blinkist staff pick

“Having fished a lot of cod as a kid, I was thrilled to learn what an important role this once-so-common fish has played in shaping world history.”

– Erik, Editorial Production Manager at Blinkist

The Basque people were the first to introduce North American cod to Europe.

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.

The invention of longline fishing increased production but also endangered the cod.

For a while, fishing remained a traditional practice with few innovations. All that changed, however, when the French invented longline fishing in the nineteenth century.

Basically, longlining is a technique where a small boat, called a dory, drops a long fishing line that sinks to the bottom. Along this line, at three-foot intervals, are lanyards with hooks. Floating barrels were used for buoys so that the fishermen could find these lines again.

The invention of the steam engine and frozen food forever changed industrial fishing.

Most people know that the invention of the steam engine led to the Industrial Revolution; less known is how it also transformed the fishing industry.

In the nineteenth century, European waters were already quite empty and it was difficult to catch fish anyway, so the Europeans were the first to test the new steam technology in their boats.

Depleted fish populations inspired Iceland to make a bid to expand national fishing zones.

Overfishing is a topic still debated today. Even at the turn of the twentieth century, people already knew it was a problem – and Iceland was prepared to fight it.

Around 1900, the British discovered that the number of cod in the North Sea had been depleted, so they turned their attention to Icelandic waters, leading to several conflicts.

Key ideas in Cod

What is Cod about?

Cod (1997) charts the rise and fall of the codfish. A major commodity in the European market during the discovery of the New World, cod went on to cause national conflicts and, due to overfishing, eventually became vulnerable to extinction. Find out how this fish changed the world only to end up on the verge of oblivion.