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Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World |
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Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World |
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by: Mark Kurlansky
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.956633 EAN: 9780802713261 Edition: 1 ISBN: 0802713262 Label: Walker & Company Languages: Manufacturer: Walker & Company Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 304 Publication Date: June 01, 1997 Publisher: Walker & Company Studio: Walker & Company Editorial Review: Product Description: A history of the fish that has led to wars, stirred revolutions, sustained economies and diets, and helped in the settlement of North America features photographs, drawings, and recipes, as well as the natural history of this much sought after fish." Amazon.com Review: 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. Related Items:
Average Rating:
 Rating:  - This fish just isn't enoughI didn't like this book at all. It was sooo boring. It would have made an interesting magazine article. But a full length book? Umm, no. Rating:  - Fine, intriguing history, but getting a bit datedHistory is all about contingencies. So it is not unusual for a historian to argue backwards and make a reasonable claim that "X was crucial and changed the course of history," where X can be almost any fact, event, or thing. Mark Kurlansky has given us a fine example of this genre with Cod (as he apparently did earlier with Salt, which I have not read). Whether the cod was "the fish that changed the world" is beside the point. Kurlansky deploys the formula skillfully. He is a fine writer, and he has mustered an excellent history of the fish, the North Atlantic fisheries, and the fishermen, merchants, and monarchs who earned their livings and built their empires around and upon it. And he is relentless in documenting the ignorance and callousness that led to the collapse of one of the ocean's great resources. Peppered throughout are interesting facts and interpretations, such as the notion that the Basques were routinely fishing off Newfoundland long before Columbus made his first voyage. It even has recipes! I will offer two caveats. First, any history book with an expansive geographic scope should include maps. Amazingly, Cod does not. So despite the fact that I have just finished reading 275 pages on cod fishing, if you sat me down, showed me a map of the North Atlantic, and asked me to point out the locations of the Grand Banks and the Georges Bank, I couldn't do it. Secondly, the book was published in 1997 and this comment in 2010, so recent developments in our understanding and management of fisheries are obviously absent. For example, the fishermen of Gloucester are experimenting with the notion of community-supported fisheries (like community-supported agriculture), which may provide a better economic model for depressed fisheries. If you read Cod, take a few minutes when you finish to bring yourself up to date. Perhaps things are not quite so bleak. Rating:  - Historical Perspective with a mix of NurtritionWho would think a mundane topic about Cod Fish would be so interesting and thought provoking. This book address how a simple yet important food source has impacted our diet, cultural development, historical expansion, economic development, and the environment. All from a lackluster, bland tasting fish that has unfortunately been hunted to near extinction. Sound familiar? Not only does it provide intriguing insight, it addresses the important issue as to how we impact our planet. I highly recommend the book. Rating: - "A flaky story, but what the hake !"I was floundering around, trying to decide what to read next. I spotted Mark Kurlansky's book on my shelf and realized it had been sitting there since 1997. "Holy mackerel", I thought, "I should have read that before now." I took it down, perched on my favorite char, and shad all my inhibitions about reading books on fish. After a few pages, I was hooked. I can report that it's a most interesting book that traces cod's part in Western history from early times. When the Italian John Cabot `discovered' Newfoundland, he found a thousand Basque fishing vessels already there. When did they start coming ? Nobody knows, but for those partisans of Chris Columbus, this will be a most sharking piece of information. Kurlansky exsalmons many aspects of the cod fisheries in the North Sea, off Iceland, and on the Grand Banks of North America, shedding a ray of light on why overfishing has put most fishermen out of business. We can say that short sighted policies have scrod them. There is no use carping about this, we've wantonly wasted this once-inexhaustible resource, thinking that such dace would never come. The scale of the population crash is greater than I thought and cod may very well go the way of the dodo. I was also glad to see that my hometown, Marblehead, Mass., once a major fishing port, rated a few mentions. It once smelt of drying cod, but the dangerous life on the Grand Banks, as described in the book, came to an end after a terrible storm in 1846. Nearby Gloucester has carried on to the bitter end. The sections on the nexus of cod, molasses and slavery impressed me, and the reason why stockfish/salt cod is still a part of Caribbean and West African life becomes clear. I enjoyed reading the big grouper of recipes provided in between chapters and at the end, with very interesting information to go along with them, but can only conclude that if you try certain ones, you will wind up quite eel. COD is a very enjoyable book, with a lot of well-researched chapters which are well-written up. If you are keen to know about a single species of fish in history, you could read this book, or you could read it just for the halibut. There are already 128 reviews of this book on Amazon, so if you've been reading them, by now you've probably haddock and have tunaed out. But I've been herring a good time (both reading and whiting) and heartily recommend COD to you.
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