 OH MY COD!
I am very disturbed by anything that has to do with harming animals. I am very sensitive to those types of things, being very Spiritual-thoughted in the way that we should feel compassion for everything. That being said, having to read this for a college class, the book still kept my attention.
Of course I feel sorry for all the Cod that died to bring this book to life, but after reading it, I have to admit that I did not really expect so many things to have come about from a simple fish that swims with its mouth open.
Now...I am going to go get a can of soda from my deep freeze fridge, which Cod are responsible for (so the book says).
5/5 (its a quick read, so don't be scared to try it....very approachable and extremely unintimidating
 Cod! It's the "fish" in Fish & chips...
Interesting history of the world as seen by a Cod fisherman... We have the Basque "discovering" New England about 200 years before Christopher Columbus manages to get here. (Cabot notes that there were about 1,000 ships fishing the grand banks when he came by in 1497... We have the beginning of fisheries management... "get all you can, while the fishing is hot." followed by fishing stocks crash. And what that horrible tasting medicine in Mary Poppins must have been, "cod liver oil" although for the life of me, I can't imagine it's flavor was improved with a spoon full of sugar. We have the gist of the three Cod wars between England and Iceland.
Seriously, it's an interesting history & economics book. Much better than your average dry overview book. And it highlights the faults of unregulated capitalism. Over production followed by price drops, and finally resource depletion. If you liked King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon you'll like reading about Cod.
Very well-written history of... a fishery!
I've read that navies and explorers survived off the flesh of sea turtles and seals. Towns and economies developed over whales and whaling.
But, according to Mark Kurlansky, the "cod" fisheries (there are more than one species) were influential in maintaining the Caribbean slave trade, were a major basis of commerce and livelihood for hundreds of thousands in the western European countries, as well as Iceland, Canada, and the United States, and fed the world with a cheap and easily transported and stored protein - salted cod.
Kurlansky explores this topic in Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World.
In many regions, cod went from an "inexhaustible" resource to one missing from the landscape. For example,
"Canadian cod was not yet biologically extinct, but it was commercially extinct - so rare that it could no longer be considered commercially viable. Just three years short of the 500-year anniversary of the reports of Cabot's men scooping up cod in baskets, it was over. Fishermen had caught them all" (p. 186).
Kurlansky tells this tale from the beginning, starting with the discovery of huge schools of large fish, and the development and refinement of an industry to exploit this resource. You'll get a visual taste of this exploitation in The End of the Line.
My edition (Penguin Books) apparently won a "James Beard Award." I assume this is because of the cod recipes scattered throughout the text, all from a 500 year stretch.
Visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium's site for information on their Seafood Watch program. Only purchase seafood from sustainable sources!
Seemed like fishy topic but loved it the minute I picked it up.
This is a terrific non fiction book that subjects cod and its history in the world that mingles geographical, anthropological, etymological, economical, gastronomical, political, and scientific currents to enhance the reader's knowledge in all these areas. If only history classes were as well formulated with Kurlansky's adept talents. The style reminded me of a PBS series that was aired in the early 1980's called "Connections" which had a similar format.
lb auld
another great book, this author is such a great historical source of information, reminds me of Michener
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