The fish that changed the world
Sending a crew to the moon in 1969 made for great television.
It’s the moment that generations will likely recall as the icon of
our time.
But it didn’t really change anything, did it?
The oral polio vaccine did not arrive with the drama of
”
one small step for man
…
”
but it changed the planet profoundly. Parents who would watch
their children and worry each summer were freed of the burden and
countless children never knew the pain, disability and
embarrassment of being different.
The fish that changed the world
Sending a crew to the moon in 1969 made for great television. It’s the moment that generations will likely recall as the icon of our time.
But it didn’t really change anything, did it?
The oral polio vaccine did not arrive with the drama of “one small step for man …” but it changed the planet profoundly. Parents who would watch their children and worry each summer were freed of the burden and countless children never knew the pain, disability and embarrassment of being different.
The vaccine did not arrive in time for my mother, but she soldiered on after recovering from the disease, a vivacious woman who, at 5-foot-9, most people would never imagine had suffered from “infantile paralysis.”
Columbus’ voyages to the New World brought new diseases, and they returned with a host of new foods. Chocolate and tobacco returned to Europe, offering new pleasures and new vices. Tomatoes, chilies and potatoes filled out the New World menu.
It’s hard to imagine much Chinese or Indian food without the fire of chilies, but the capsicum is a new arrival at the table.
The potato, in particular, changed a people. Ireland and the Irish were a poor lot, depending largely on barley as a staple crop. Given the capricious nature of Irish weather, the crop was prone to fail. With starvation always gnawing, the population remained small and stable.
Then the potato came, offering reliable calories that could be plucked from poor ground. People ate prodigious amounts of them, and fueled with abundant food, they had babies. The population exploded and an entire society began to change.
I’ve been thinking about these events and others like them as I began to read “Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World,” by Mark Kurlansky. The modest book got rave reviews when it was first published in 1997, but nevertheless I’m only now getting to it.
Blame the subject matter. A book about a fish just didn’t leap off the shelf.
But Kurlansky tells a lively story about the unlikely looking bottom dweller.
And, like the potato, it is the story of a discovery that changed society.
Cod possess a combination of attributes that arrived exactly when societies across Europe needed them.
The Roman Catholic Church dominated life in Europe before the Protestant reformation, influencing politics, the flow of money and nearly every aspect of daily life.
Nearly half the days in the year demanded that the observant fast, abstaining from meat.
Fish was OK, of course, but fish spoiled easily and was difficult to transport over long distances.
Herring and other high-fat fish could be salted and dried, but even they had a limited shelf life due to their oiliness.
Cod, on the other hand, has less than 1 percent fat content, and is nearly 20 percent protein. As a salted, dried slab, cod looks more like driftwood than something edible. But it lasts almost forever. And dried it is about 80 percent protein.
Fresh its white flesh is mild to the point of being insipid. But dried and reconstituted, the fish takes on a new texture and flavor, the perfect main course for a poor people without benefit of refrigeration.
Best of all, the fish appeared limitless, the buffalo of the briny. Near-shore stocks were harvested around the northern Atlantic. But when international intrigue locked England out of the game, Basques seized opportunity.
Fishermen found a rich source of cod, and carefully guarded the secret of their western Atlantic fishing grounds. Years before Christopher Columbus blundered into the New World, hundreds of Basques were fishing the waters off North America, and probably coming ashore to salt and dry it.
Wars were fought over cod and national diets were built around it.
If you are more than a couple decades old, you probably grew up on a regular diet of frozen cod or fish and chips made of the stuff.
But that’s changed. That’s exactly what makes “Cod” such a compelling yarn.
This limitless resource, a finny fish with a hooked jaw and a strange looking whisker on its lower jaw, has been hunted to the brink of oblivion.
In Canada, where whole towns were built around the cod, regulating the fishery is the most controversial of topics. But there’s growing awareness and acceptance that it’s past time to act.
Mark Paxton can be reached at
mp*****@pi**********.com
.
