Portugalâs more than doubled. Many ports grew into large urban centers, including Bilbao, Porto, Lisbon, Genoa, and Naples. Barcelona in 1900 had a population of almost one million peopleâmost of them passionate bacalao consumers.
But North Americans did not succeed in this market. Though Newfoundland, Labrador, and Nova Scotia remained almost entirely dependent on fishing, there was little quality and they largely sold to Boston or the Caribbean. The one North American exception was the Gaspé, where a quality Gaspé cure was sold to the Mediterranean. Some 900 years after the Basques won the competitive edge over the Scandinavians by salting rather than just air-drying fish, the Scandinavians became competitive by perfecting salting. Norway and Denmark, which controlled Iceland and the Faroe Islands, moved aggressively into the top-quality Mediterranean markets and have remained.
Even today, with goods and people moving more freely than ever before, most salt cod eaters are attached to the traditional cure of their region. Modern Montreal is a city of both Caribbean and Mediterranean immigrants. At the Jean Talon market in the north of the city, stores feature badly split, small dried salt cods from Nova Scotia and huge, well-prepared salt cod from the Gaspé. The Caribbeans consistently buy the Nova Scotian, while the Gaspé is sold to Portuguese and Italians.
George Dennisâs fish-curing establishment, circa 1900, east Gloucester. (Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts)
Â
In New England, just as the West Indies market declined, the domestic market grew. Salt cod became a staple of the Union Army, and Gloucester profited from the Civil War. But the war had also industrialized northern economies, and New England, a key player in the American industrial revolution, became much less dependent on its fisheries. The old merchant families moved their money into industry. The term codfish aristocracy was now used by an emerging working class to remind the establishment that they had gotten rich in lowly trade and therefore, for all their airs, were simply nouveau riche.
Their image as Revolutionary leaders faded, and, for all their aristocratic trappings, they were simply remembered as haughty people who had once made a lot of money from fish. In 1874, a Latin American revolutionary, Francisco de Miranda, visited Boston and after going to the Massachusetts State House, reported that the cod hanging there was âof natural size, made of wood, and in bad taste.â Worse yet, in the 1930s, Bostonâs Irish-American mayor, James Michael Curley, a feisty populist who took on the Boston establishment, objected to calling them codfish aristocracy. He said the term was âan insult to fish.â
A LINGERING MEMORY
In the American South, slaves modified African cooking for white people. After the Civil War, this process continued as many former slaves found jobs cooking for corporations or the railroad. âI was born in Murray County, Tennessee, in 1857, a slave. I was given the name of my master, D. J. Estes, who owned my motherâs family, consisting of seven boys and two girls. I being the youngest of the family.â So begins the self-published book of Rufus Estes, âformerly of the Pullman Company private car service and present chef of the subsidiary companies of the United States Steel Corporations in Chicago.â Given the flaking technique in his recipe, the date, and place, the âcodfishâ is probably salt cod.
STEWED CODFISH
Take a piece of boiled cod, remove the skin and bones and pick into flakes. Put these in a stew pan with a little butter, salt and pepper, minced parsley and juice of a lemon. Put on the fire and when the contents of the pan are quite hot the fish is ready to serve.
âRufus Estes,
Good Things to Eat, 1911
part two
Limits
CODâA SPECIES OF FISH TOO WELL KNOWN TO REQUIRE ANY DESCRIPTION. IT IS AMAZINGLY PROLIFIC.
But North Americans did not succeed in this market. Though Newfoundland, Labrador, and Nova Scotia remained almost entirely dependent on fishing, there was little quality and they largely sold to Boston or the Caribbean. The one North American exception was the Gaspé, where a quality Gaspé cure was sold to the Mediterranean. Some 900 years after the Basques won the competitive edge over the Scandinavians by salting rather than just air-drying fish, the Scandinavians became competitive by perfecting salting. Norway and Denmark, which controlled Iceland and the Faroe Islands, moved aggressively into the top-quality Mediterranean markets and have remained.
Even today, with goods and people moving more freely than ever before, most salt cod eaters are attached to the traditional cure of their region. Modern Montreal is a city of both Caribbean and Mediterranean immigrants. At the Jean Talon market in the north of the city, stores feature badly split, small dried salt cods from Nova Scotia and huge, well-prepared salt cod from the Gaspé. The Caribbeans consistently buy the Nova Scotian, while the Gaspé is sold to Portuguese and Italians.
George Dennisâs fish-curing establishment, circa 1900, east Gloucester. (Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts)
Â
In New England, just as the West Indies market declined, the domestic market grew. Salt cod became a staple of the Union Army, and Gloucester profited from the Civil War. But the war had also industrialized northern economies, and New England, a key player in the American industrial revolution, became much less dependent on its fisheries. The old merchant families moved their money into industry. The term codfish aristocracy was now used by an emerging working class to remind the establishment that they had gotten rich in lowly trade and therefore, for all their airs, were simply nouveau riche.
Their image as Revolutionary leaders faded, and, for all their aristocratic trappings, they were simply remembered as haughty people who had once made a lot of money from fish. In 1874, a Latin American revolutionary, Francisco de Miranda, visited Boston and after going to the Massachusetts State House, reported that the cod hanging there was âof natural size, made of wood, and in bad taste.â Worse yet, in the 1930s, Bostonâs Irish-American mayor, James Michael Curley, a feisty populist who took on the Boston establishment, objected to calling them codfish aristocracy. He said the term was âan insult to fish.â
A LINGERING MEMORY
In the American South, slaves modified African cooking for white people. After the Civil War, this process continued as many former slaves found jobs cooking for corporations or the railroad. âI was born in Murray County, Tennessee, in 1857, a slave. I was given the name of my master, D. J. Estes, who owned my motherâs family, consisting of seven boys and two girls. I being the youngest of the family.â So begins the self-published book of Rufus Estes, âformerly of the Pullman Company private car service and present chef of the subsidiary companies of the United States Steel Corporations in Chicago.â Given the flaking technique in his recipe, the date, and place, the âcodfishâ is probably salt cod.
STEWED CODFISH
Take a piece of boiled cod, remove the skin and bones and pick into flakes. Put these in a stew pan with a little butter, salt and pepper, minced parsley and juice of a lemon. Put on the fire and when the contents of the pan are quite hot the fish is ready to serve.
âRufus Estes,
Good Things to Eat, 1911
part two
Limits
CODâA SPECIES OF FISH TOO WELL KNOWN TO REQUIRE ANY DESCRIPTION. IT IS AMAZINGLY PROLIFIC.
Similar Books
