Cod: A Biography of a Fish that Changed the World is a book by Mark Kurlansky. Kurlansky examines the history of cod and the impact the species has had on cultures, customs and people throughout the world. First published in 1997 it has won the Glenfiddich Award for the best food book, the James Beard Award and was a New York Times bestseller.
Cod starts with a description of cod fishing community in Petty Harbour, Newfoundland, Canada in the modern-day. In the late 1400s, the explorer John Cabot wrote that cod were so numerous in the waters of Newfoundland that they could be caught with a weighted basket quickly pulled through the sea. Kurlansky finds that this is no longer the case. There is now a moratorium on fishing for cod due to numbers being almost totally depleted by centuries of overfishing and fishermen are employed by scientists to catch and tag cod in order to monitor numbers and see if the species is beginning to recover. The fishermen describe how there is now constant pressure to reopen the fishery, and the slightest increase in stocks sees calls for commercial fishing to be re-started. As Kurlansky states “The problem with the people of Petty Harbour, is that they are on the wrong end of a 1000-year fishing spree.”
This is a powerful opening to the book, outlining the impact that the loss of cod stocks has had on a community. Kurlansky, however, then goes back almost one thousand years, describing how the Basques and Vikings started one of the first cod fisheries by sailing from Europe to North American waters to catch cod, drying and salting their catches for the journey home. Subsequent chapters look at the role cod played in many other societies. In the 1700s Massachusetts built its wealth on cod with the fish featured on coins, stamps and crest, while the town hall and other government buildings had carved wooden cod hanging from the ceiling. Indeed, cod was so important to the wealth of Massachusetts that many of the rich families who descended from the fish merchants of the 1700s were known as the “codfish aristocracy.”
Cod also played a role in many other aspects of American history. During the American War of Independence in the 1770s, Royal Navy ships prevented American boats from fishing the Grand Banks and prevented Nova Scotians and Newfoundlanders from trading with Boston. In response, American schooners were fitted with cannons and used to take on British warships. Kurlansky writes that after the war disputes over fishing in Grand Banks and the Gulf of St. Lawrence were one of the most difficult issues to resolve, with Britain, America and France (America’s ally during the war) all claiming the rights to fish these waters. Eventually, Britain granted New England the right to fish the grand banks, although this led to one of the first splits between the Northern and Southern states.
The book takes an international approach and examines the role cod has played across the world. The history of Iceland is closely tied up with cod. Kurlansky writes how the waters of the nation have been so rich with cod that once Icelanders started to exploit them the country rapidly grew richer and transformed “in one generation from a fifteenth-century colonial society to a modern post-war nation.” The three Cod Wars Iceland fought against Britain to claim ownership of its own waters and the cod within them are also covered in detail.
Kurlansky describes how early fisheries caught cod with handlines, but then sail-powered trawlers and then steam-powered vessels took over, eventually catching cod at such a rate that stocks across many parts of the world began to collapse. He explains the significance of Clarence Birdseye and his revolutionary freezing and filleting processes which were first developed in the 1920s. Fast and efficient processing was combined with freezing and soon cod were being sold across America and eventually the world, hugely increasing the demand for the species. Kurlansky goes on to explain that as the twentieth century progressed and fish-catching technology continued to improve cod catches continued to increase, even as the overall number of cod left in the sea was diminishing. He writes:
“It was difficult to think of overfishing when the catches were getting bigger every year, but the catches were improving not because the stocks were plentiful, but because fishing was getting more efficient. Nevertheless, as long as better fishing technology yielded bigger catches, it didn’t seem that the stocks were being depleted.”
This leads to the chapter Requiem for the Grand Banks which explains how centuries of overfishing caused the Grand Banks spawning stock of cod to go from an estimated seven million tons in the time of John Cabot in 1498, to being commercially extinct by the early 1990s.
This is by no means a negative or depressing book, despite the fact that many chapters cover the decline of cod and the seeming impossibility of rebuilding stocks that have collapsed. Each chapter is preceded by recipes which use cod from around the world, as well as historical quotes, proverbs and sayings which relate to cod. Kurlansky outlines the appeal of cod as a food fish, explaining that it is prized for the “whiteness of its flesh” which can be “so purely white that the large flakes almost glow on the plate.”
However, Kurlansky goes on to write about all of the other parts of the cod which can be eaten, saying:
“There is almost no waste to a cod. The head is more flavourful than the body, … The roe is eaten, fresh or smoked … The Japanese still eat cod milt. Stomachs, tripe and livers are all eaten, and the liver oil is highly valued for its vitamins. Icelanders stuff cod stomachs with cod liver oil and boil them until tender and eat them like sausages. This dish is also made in the Scottish Highlands where its dubious popularity is not helped by the local names: Liver-Muggie or Crappin-Muggie. Cod tripe is eaten in the Mediterranean. The skin is either eaten or cured as leather … Until the twentieth century, Icelanders softened the bones in sour milk and ate them too.”
The book is strengthened by the depth of Kurlansky’s research. When discussing the dangers of cod fishing during the 19th century he quotes statistics that say that between 1830 and 1900 there were 3,800 men from the town of Gloucester died while fishing, but the population of the entire town was only 15,000 people. An incident in February 1862 saw 120 men drowned in one night when a gale swept across Georges Bank. Kurlansky goes on to describe that modern cod fishing is hardly less dangerous, stating:
“As fishing modernized, fishermen were no longer lost in dories [small boats] but were twisted in electic winches used to rapidly haul cable, slammed by trawl doors flying across the deck, crushed by rollers. On the modern trawler, being crushed in machinery is the leading cause of death but is closely followed by the more traditional fisherman’s death, drowning. Ships sink at sea; men fall or are swept overboard. If a fisherman gets his foot caught in a rope that is rapidly paying out, he will be dragged overboard and drowned almost before anyone realizes he is overboard.”
The later chapters look at modern fishing. Kurlansky contrasts Iceland and Newfoundland. Both are of a similar size and have control over their own plentiful cod stocks. While Newfoundland has mismanaged and squandered its cod stocks through overfishing, Iceland, along with Norway, have managed theirs and today enjoy healthy cod populations and both nations have fishing industries which are both sustainable and highly profitable. Kurlansky writes that this was achieved as Iceland and Norway made tough decisions and laid off fishermen and closed fisheries when cod stocks began to decline. Canada caved into pressure from politicians and the fishing industry and ignored clear evidence of dwindling cod stocks, leading to the collapse of the Newfoundland cod fishery in the early 1990s. Kurlansky also other modern issues such as the Common Fisheries Policy (confusingly referred to as the Common Fishing Policy in the book) and describes it as an attempt to restore fish stocks through “regulatory bureaucracy” and highlights the tension which has been created between Spanish fishermen and British fishermen in Cornwall due to the shared fishing areas set out in Common Fisheries Policy.
Kurlansky ends the penultimate chapter of the book with a warning. He explains that large land animals have been hunted to such an extent that they are now effectively extinct in the wild and need to be farmed in order to exist in numbers large enough to feed humans. He goes on to say “It is harder to kill off fish than mammals. But after 1000 years of hunting the Atlantic cod, we know that it can be done.” The final chapter is entitled A Cook’s Tale and covers six centuries of cod recipes from around the world and explains the history of each recipe.
Cod: A Biography of a Fish that Changed the World is a brilliantly researched and extremely interesting book. It covers history, food, politics and policies and shows how much impact a single species of fish can have across the world. General readers with no specific interest in fish or fishing will enjoy this book, and anglers or those interested in marine conservation or the history of fishing will find it fascinating.
Cod: A Biography of a Fish that Changed the World can be purchased from Amazon by clicking here.