Cod by Mark Kurlansky

¶ … Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky. Specifically, it will answer this question: "What role did codfish have in the discovery of America?" Cod and America go hand in hand, and after reading this book, it is easy to see why. Cod were the sustenance of life for many of the world's people, from the Basques to the Norsemen, and following the cod led these earliest explorers to the shores of North America.

While most people think it was Christopher Columbus who first discovered North America, but that is not really the truth. Records show that Norse Vikings, like Leif Eiriksson, found the continent of North America as early as the tenth century, calling it first "Woodland" and then "Vineland" as they moved down the coast. Kurlansky writes, "Woodland could have been Newfoundland, Nova Scotia or Maine, all three of which are wooded. But in Vineland they found wild grapes, which no one else has discovered in any of these places" (Kurlansky 20).

They found the shores of North America because they were ultimately looking for cod, rather than new places to settle, and because they had learned to preserve cod, so they could take it with them on long sea voyages. Kurlansky continues the Vikings had discovered how to "preserve codfish by hanging it in the frosty winter air until it lost four-fifths of its weight and became a durable woodlike plank" (Kurlansky 21).

The Basques also fished in the North Atlantic fisheries, and learned how to salt cod, another way to keep it for long periods of time. Salt cod became a staple on fishing ships, and the discovery of the great cod fisheries in the North Atlantic not only helped ultimately feed the world, but they helped feed explorers searching the globe for wealth, spices, and even a passage around the world. Thus, the codfish fed the world, but also fostered exploration and discovery.

Many people felt Columbus had only discovered what earlier people already knew was there. Columbus was not looking for cod; he was looking for spices and the Orient. However, Kurlansky's history of the codfish clearly shows that the fish led to the early discovery of North America, and then helped lead to populating it and its economic success. Kurlansky's research also shows that men from Bristol, England also probably found North American before Columbus, and again, they were seeking cod.

They had been shut out of Icelandic cod purchasing by the German Hanseatic League, and so they were seeking new sources of the fish for England and Europe. There are no records of what they actually discovered, but they did find enough cod so that they did not need to renegotiate to buy cod through the Hanseatic League. The general thought is that they found an area off North America that was rich in cod.

In fact, after the English colonized America, cod was one of their most profitable trade items, and the British trade sanctions which kept Americans from trading their cod with other countries was one of the things that helped ultimately lead to the Revolutionary War and American independence from Great Britain. The cod then, is an historic and important fish, as Kurlansky notes, "If ever there was a fish made to endure, it is the Atlantic cod -- the common fish.

But it has among its predators man, an openmouthed species greedier than the cod" (Kurlansky 45). Man has ultimately decimated much of the cod fisheries of the world, but the significance of the fish in world.