Cod_ A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World - Mark Kurlansky [13]
Codfish include ten families with more than 200 species. Almost all live in cold salt water in the Northern Hemisphere. Cod were thought to have developed into their current forms about 120 million years ago in the Tethys Sea, a tropical sea that once ran around the earth east-west and connected all other oceans. Eventually the Tethys merged with a northern sea, and the cod became a fish of the North Atlantic. Later, when a land bridge between Asia and North America broke, cod found their way into the northern Pacific. In gadiform fish, evolution is seen in the fins. The cusk has almost a continuous single fin around the body with a barely distinct tail. The ling has a distinct tail and a small second dorsal fin. On a hake, the forward dorsal fin becomes even more distinct. On a whiting, there are three dorsal fins, and the anal (belly) side has developed two distinct fins. On the most developed gadiforms—cod, haddock, and pollock—these three dorsal and two anal fins are large and very separate.
Despite the warm-water origins, only one tropical cod remains: the tiny bregmaceros, of no commercial value and almost unknown habits. There is also one South Atlantic species and even one freshwater cod, the burbot, whose white flesh, though not quite the quality of an Atlantic cod, is enjoyed by lake fishermen in Alaska, the Great Lakes, New England, and Scandinavia. Norwegians think the burbot has a particularly delectable liver. There are other gadiforms that are pleasant to eat but of no commercial value. Sportsmen like to jig the coastline of Long Island and New England for the small tomcod, which also has a Pacific counterpart.
But to the commercial fisherman, there have always been five kinds of gadiform: the Atlantic cod, the haddock, the pollock, the whiting, and the hake. Increasingly, a sixth gadiform must be added to the list, the Pacific cod, Gadus macrocephalus, a smaller version of the Atlantic cod whose flesh is judged of only slightly lesser quality.
Engraving by William Lizars from Jardine’s Naturalist’s Library, 1833.
The Atlantic cod, however, is the largest, with the whitest meat. In the water, its five fins unfurl, giving an elegant form that is streamlined by a curving white stripe up the sides. It is also recognizable by a square rather than forked tail and a curious little appendage on the chin, which biologists think is used for feeling the ocean floor.
The smaller haddock has a similar form but is charcoal-colored on the back where the cod is spotted browns and ambers; it also has a black spot on both sides above the pectoral fin. The stripe on a haddock is black instead of white. In New England, there is a traditional explanation for this difference. There, cod is sometimes referred to as “the sacred cod.” In truth, this is because it has earned New Englanders so many sacred dollars. But according to New England folklore, it was the fish that Christ multiplied to feed the masses. In the legend, Satan tried to do the same thing, but since his hands were burning hot, the fish wriggled away. The burn mark of Satan’s thumb and forefinger left black stripes; hence the haddock.
This story illustrates the difference, not only in stripes but in status, between cod and haddock. British and Icelandic fishermen only reluctantly catch haddock after their cod quotas are filled, because cod always brings a better price. Yet Icelanders prefer eating haddock and rarely eat cod except dried. Asked why this is so, Reykjavik chef Úlfar Eysteinsson said, “We don’t eat money.”
The stars are tout morue, and cod is money; haddock is simply food. The Nova Scotians, true to their name-sakes, prefer haddock, even for fish-and-chips, which would be considered a travesty in Newfoundland and virtually a fraud in the south of England. In