Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World

Recently I’ve been reading a lot. I believe reading literature is the key to success in life. The one who reads the most should have the greatest knowledge on that subject. The latest book I’ve read was Cod: A Biography of the Fish That changed the World. It’s written by Mark Kurlansky who has written many other books including, Salt: A World History.

Many don’t realize what their eating has dated back centuries, changing the world. Cod was a key success in developing many countries. One country we all know is America, which I live in. Cod used to be the poor man’s food but because of over fishing it’s now quite expensive. Something that was a major help in fishing was salting the fish, hence salt cod.

From early fishing records cod has been a popular catch. It’s rather easy once caught because it doesn’t fight back. Cod has been located all over the world from the Black sea, to Iceland, to Newfoundland (currently Canada). It played a huge role in traveling the sea because once salted it held for long periods of time. Cod was also what many slaves ate in the Caribbean and the Americas. This is way people from this region like the lesser quality piece of codfish.

No one ever thought cod could be overfished. Many people had the mindset there were infinite amounts of this species. Though once catches started declining this concept was shortly brought up. Shortly after, many countries started to put limits on how close you could fish to their shore. Finally in 1977 most countries had two hundred mile limit zones.

Overfishing is greatly due to the trawler. A trawler is a rather large ship that drags nets behind it. The boats catch everything in their paths, including fish fisherman didn’t want. This method also contributed to other species extinctions. Another problem was high demand. When you constantly fish, the population doesn’t have a chance to regenerate.

I wish there were books like Cod: A Biography of the Fish That changed the World on every ingredient. Then again not everything changed the world this dramatically. Everyone should read this book to further their knowledge on what really changed our world.