You probably enjoy eating codfish, but reading about them? Mark Kurlansky has written a fabulous book--well worth your time--about a fish that probably has mattered more in human history than any other. The cod helped inspire the discovery and exploration of North America. It had a profound impact upon the economic development of New England and eastern Canada from the earliest times. Today, however, overfishing is a constant threat. Kurlansky sprinkles his well-written and occasionally humorous history with interesting asides on the possible origin of the word codpiece and dozens of fish recipes. Sometimes a book on an offbeat or neglected subject really makes the grade. This is one of them.


From Library Journal
In this engaging history of a "1000-year fishing spree," Kurlansky (A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny, LJ 1/92) traces the relationship of cod fishery to such historical eras and events as medieval Christianity and Christian observances; international conflicts between England and Germany over Icelandic cod; slavery, the molasses trade, and the dismantling of the British Empire; and, the evolution of a sophisticated fishing industry in New England. Kurlansky relates this information in an entertaining style while providing accurate scientific information. The story does not have a happy ending, however. The cod fishery is in trouble, deep trouble, as the Atlantic fish has been fished almost to extinction. Quoting a scientist from the Woods Hole Biological Laboratory, Massachusetts, Kurlansky notes that to forecast the recovery of the cod population is to gamble: "There is only one known calculation: 'When you get to zero, it will produce zero.'" Highly recommended for all general collections.?Mary J. Nickum, Bozeman, Mont.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Molly Benjamin
This eminently readable book is a new tool for scanning world history. It leads to a vastly different perception of why folks did what they did.... Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World is history filtered through the gills of the fish trade.


From Booklist
When something is said to have "changed the world," it is either a technological innovation or an article of trade. The North Atlantic cod is the latter, which may come as news nowadays, when it is best known as having virtually vanished from the Grand Banks, ruining the once robust fishing economies of maritime Canada and New England. Kurlansky introduces the delectable white-fleshed fish's long history by taking us out with some Newfoundland fishermen now employed in surveying the remaining cod population. But then he backtracks to tell an epic of transoceanic trade. Cod was for 1,000 years a commodity central to Europe's development and, through Europe, to development in North America, the West Indies, and Africa. Indeed, the Basques of northwestern Iberia and then the Norse discovered America well before Columbus when they probed westward, fishing for cod. Later, the fish became essential to slavery: the best dried cod was exchanged in Europe for goods to be traded for humans in Africa, while lower grades, still highly nutritious, were sold to feed West Indian plantation slaves. That is just some of the grand-scale history Kurlansky relays with maximum readability, plenty of handsome illustrations, and a 40-page appendix of superlatively annotated recipes. Ray Olson


From Kirkus Reviews
Cod--that whitest of the white-fleshed fish, prize of every fish-and-chips establishment--gets expert, loving, and encyclopedic handling from Food and Wine columnist Kurlansky (A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry, 1994, etc.). There was one very good reason that tenth-century Vikings made it to the New World: Norway to Iceland to Greenland to Canada, they followed the exact range of the Atlantic cod. When explorers pushed off European shores in search of Eldorado, others made straight for the cod fisheries of the North Atlantic; the codfishers got by far the better results. Writing with a bright, crisp, journalistic flair, Kurlansky situates the cod in all its historic glory: the mysteries of the early Basque fisheries, the role of Catholic lean days in generating a profitable market, and the rise of the codfish aristocrats. The fish ascended from a commodity to a fetish: on coins, newspaper mastheads, tax stamps, official crests and seals. The author explains how a cod run could determine an entire regional economy and how salt cod figured in slave trading. Then came the steam engine and frozen food, changing the face of a dory-and-schooner fishing practice that hadn't seen a makeover in eons. The revolution wreaked havoc on the marketplace and just plain wrecked the bank fisheries. Territorial boundaries; the complexities of marine ecology; old, annotated recipes for preparing cod; place portraits of Gloucester, Mass., and Newlyn, England; and the current moratorium on cod fishing--Kurlansky sketches them all in his effort to compose this smart biography of the famous groundfish. Will the cod come back? Kurlansky demurs; maybe its place will be usurped by the ratty Arctic cod: ``Nature, the ultimate pragmatist, doggedly searches for something that works. But as the cockroach demonstrates, what works best in nature does not always appeal to us.'' (25 illustrations) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Books as beautifully written and elegantly illustrated as this are, unhappily, as rare as cod. Kurlansky's marvellous fish opus stands as a reminder of what good non-fiction used to be: eloquent, learned, and full of earthy narratives that delight and appall. This book yields a feast of common and uncommon truths about the greatest of all hunters, homo sapiens." -- The Globe and Mail

"[A] marvellously enlightening ... concise biography that does justice to the vibrant and tragic history of the cod." -- St. John's Evening Telegram

"Stephen King would be proud. In Cod, Mark Kurlansky has created a little book of horrors that is compulsively readable." -- The Georgia Straight

"This remarkable and informative volume should net any number of happy readers." -- Publishers Weekly

"A beautiful, vivacious essay on life and manners, not overlooking human folly." -- The Financial Post

"Every once in a while a writer of particular skill takes a fresh, seemingly improbable idea and turns out a book of pure delight. Such is the case of Mark Kurlansky and the codfish." -- David McCullough


Book Description
A delightful romp through history with all its economic forces laid bare, Cod is the biography of a single species of fish, but it may as well be a world history with this humble fish as its recurring main character. Cod, it turns out, is the reason Europeans set sail across the Atlantic, and it is the only reason they could. What did the Vikings eat in icy Greenland and on the five expeditions to America recorded in the Icelandic sagas? Cod--frozen and dried in the frosty air, then broken into pieces and eaten like hardtack. What was the staple of the medieval diet? Cod again, sold salted by the Basques, an enigmatic people with a mysterious, unlimited supply of cod. As we make our way through the centuries of cod history, we also find a delicious legacy of recipes, and the tragic story of environmental failure, of depleted fishing stocks where once their numbers were te fate of the universe. Here--for scientist and layperson alike, for philosopher, science-fiction reader, biologist, and computer expert--is a startlingly complete and rational synthesis of disciplines, and a new, optimistic message about existence.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
In New England folklore, cod was the fish that Christ multiplied to feed the masses. Satan tried to do the same thing, but since his hands were burning hot, the fish wriggled away. The burn mark of Satan's thumb and forefinger left black stripes; hence the cod's differently striped and poorly regarded relative, the haddock.

How influential has the codfish been in the world's history? Wars have been fought over it, entire regional diets have been founded on it, the settlement of North America was based on it — and just recently a war nearly broke out on the high seas over it. Who knew? In Mark Kurlansky's fascinating book Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, the author offers a fascinating new perspective on world history.

Cod — winner of the 1998 James Beard Award for Writing on Food — traces the fish's thousand-year history across four continents. Kurlansky begins with present-day Newfoundland, where trouble has been abundant as a fishing crisis has stripped fishermen of their occupations and identity. He then examines the far reaches of cod's history with the Vikings, who pursued the fish across the Atlantic, and the Pilgrims, who set sail for the New World to pursue freedom of religion and to live on fishing — with neither the skills nor the equipment to do so.

Kurlansky introduces readers to some key historical figures in the history of this fish that changed the world. There is Bartholomew Gosnold, who named Cape Cod in 1602. Clarence Birdseye founded the frozen cod industry in the 1930s. Andthereare the countless fishermen in towns like Gloucester, St. Malo, and Newlyn — from Nova Scotia to the coasts of England, Brazil, and West Africa — all of whose livelihoods are currently being threatened by the global ecological crisis of the codfish. Sebastian Junger, take note: What made your runaway bestseller The Perfect Storm possible? Cod — the fish that changed the world.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Cod spans a thousand years and four continents. From the Vikings, who pursued the codfish across the Atlantic, and the enigmatic Basques, who first commercialized it in medieval times, to Bartholomew Gosnold, who named Cape Cod in 1602, and Clarence Birdseye, who founded an industry on frozen cod in the 1930s, Mark Kurlansky introduces the explorers, merchants, writers, chefs, and of course the fishermen, whose lives have interwoven with this prolific fish. He chronicles the fifteenth-century politics of the Hanseatic League and the cod wars of the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. He embellishes his story with gastronomic detail, blending in recipes and lore from the Middle Ages to the present. And he brings to life the cod itself: its personality, habits, extended family, and ultimately the tragedy of how the most profitable fish in history is today faced with extinction. From fishing ports in New England and Newfoundland to coastal skiffs, schooners, and factory ships across the Atlantic; from Iceland and Scandinavia to the coasts of England, Brazil, and West Africa, Mark Kurlansky tells a story that brings world history and human passions into captivating focus.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

No fish story, this is a sapient and vivid chronology of the immense impact and influence the cod fishing industry has had on the human race. The cod fish has played a major role in the economics, sustainability and diplomacy of many countries and societies throughout history, explains Kurlansky (A Continent of Islands). Kurlansky effectively weaves philosophical thought with facts and vignettes on the history of the various cod fishing enterprises that have emerged and faded through the ages. Wars over fishing territories and rights have plagued cod fishing ever since humans took to the sea, and Kurlansky traces these hostilities through short history lessons that are easily absorbed and understood. Personal quotes and cod recipes from slaves, kings, diplomats, fisherman and noted scholars such as Thoreau and Kipling cast a glistening view of the grasp this fishing industry had on society. The book's final section, A Cook's Tale: Six Centuries of Cod Recipes describes the use and preparation of cod from the days of the Vikings through the 1900s. Complete with a detailed bibliography, this remarkable and informative volume should net any number of happy readers.

Library Journal

In this New York Times best seller, Kurlansky gets us to look at the lowly cod in a whole new light. Search for the lucrative codfish played a key role in the development of the New World. Britain allowed the Colonies to trade with third parties-a milestone on the road to independence-due to a superabundance of cod. We also hear about the evolution of fishing technology that is so successful that cod have come close to extinction and the effect of the 200-mile limit. Moreover, the author relates marvelous Basque, French, British, and New England cod recipes from the last 500 years. Richard Davidson narrates this exceptionally informative and entertaining work.-James L. Dudley, Westhampton, NY Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In this engaging history of a "1000-year fishing spree," Kurlansky (A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny, LJ 1/92) traces the relationship of cod fishery to such historical eras and events as medieval Christianity and Christian observances; international conflicts between England and Germany over Icelandic cod; slavery, the molasses trade, and the dismantling of the British Empire; and, the evolution of a sophisticated fishing industry in New England. Kurlansky relates this information in an entertaining style while providing accurate scientific information. The story does not have a happy ending, however. The cod fishery is in trouble, deep trouble, as the Atlantic fish has been fished almost to extinction. Quoting a scientist from the Woods Hole Biological Laboratory, Massachusetts, Kurlansky notes that to forecast the recovery of the cod population is to gamble: "There is only one known calculation: `When you get to zero, it will produce zero.'" Highly recommended for all general collections.
--Mary J. Nickum

Los Angeles Times

An elegant brief history...related with brio and wit.

NY Public Library

One of the 25 best books of the year.Read all 6 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING