Cod

The recap

It seems an unlikely hero for a history book: a pale, bottom-dwelling fish with a mild flavor. Yet Mark Kurlansky argues that the Atlantic cod shaped empires, financed colonies and set nations against each other. Salted and dried, it kept for months, which made it ideal food for Viking voyages, Basque sailors and a Christian calendar crowded with meatless days. Its abundance off Newfoundland and New England helped lure Europeans across the ocean and fueled the trade that tied together the Caribbean, Africa and the American colonies. Kurlansky follows the fish through centuries of fishing communities, from medieval ports to the Cod Wars between Britain and Iceland, and on into the late twentieth century, when stocks once thought inexhaustible began to collapse. Scattered throughout are historical recipes gathered from kitchens around the Atlantic. The result is a lively, wide-angle microhistory that uses one humble species to tell a story about appetite, commerce and the limits of nature.