Sunday, November 20, 2016

Cod: A biography of a Fish That Changed the World

Reading a fascinating book on Cod. It's by Mark Kurlansky, the guy who wrote the book on Salt. I'm not surprised he wrote the cod book, as cod was salted as part of its preservation process. I got the book based off the cover. That beautiful plate style drawing of cod is something that tickles my fancy, with the added photograph of what its going to get at, how people were so involved in its life.

In short, hawt, eye catching cover.





I love well told history. Not the historical romances, or even the the regular historcal novels, though there are some gems within. A nonfiction history book, where the purpose is to learn something new is a gem to behold when it is well written.

So Cod I am reading and I forget what it's like to even read history beyond a public school level. I have not been studying history to the diligent minutia as I had in university. But there was this feeling I remember getting, some time in my second year, where my view on a historical event was thrown on its head.

This book has done that.

When I picture early exploration of the Canadian coast by white explorers, I see one lone ship.
This book made me realize how bias history in public school is. Jacque Cartier was not alone when he was 'discovering' north America, indeed he had not. Many before him had came, but when one pictures him, he seems very much alone with his crew, not with the boundless European fisherman (Basque in particular) who actually were there in the background.

It makes me think of a Monty Python Quote, when King Arthur rides by, on his invisible horse,  peasant No1 remarks to Peasent No 2.:

"Who's that?" No1
"Must be a king." No2
"Why?" No 1
"He hasn't got shit all over him."

And so Jacque Cartier stands pristine over the Canadian collective memory of its history, rather than as a man moved along by the backs of others. Cartier himself comments on the 1000 fishing boats of Basque fishermen he had to go through to get to this 'new land'.



It’s a good book. Anyone who enjoys Socio-economic history based around trade and individual objects (especially animals) and their impact on how human history developed, read this book.

I am unfinished and plan on finally approaching Salt after this.

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