Cod_ A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World - Mark Kurlansky [77]
In the twentieth century, the Lot became increasingly polluted and unnavigable, but a new invention was well suited to the preparation of stockfish: the flush toilet. In 1947, the president of the Conseil, the governing body of France, asked his valet to flush the toilet once an hour for the next week in preparation for a special dinner he was preparing on Sunday. The dish was stockfish. The toilet was fed by a water tank mounted high up on the wall, the chasse d‘eau. A stockfish left in the chasse d’eau for two days was soft and ready for cooking. The system was also ideal for salted fish, since the water was easy to change. All of this may be deemed unaesthetic, but, unfortunately, it is now more hygienic than using the Garonne and its tributaries.
TWO VIEWS OF STOCKFISH
[STOCKFISH IS] HARD AS LUMPS OF WOOD, BUT FREE OF BAD FLAVOR, IN FACT, WITHOUT MUCH FLAVOR AT ALL ... THOUGH VERY NICE AS AN APPETIZER, AND AFTER ALL, ANYTHING THAT PERFORMS THAT FUNCTION CANNOT BE ALL THAT BAD.
—Poggio Bracciolini (celebrated Latin scholar), 1436
DRIED FISH IS A STAPLE FOOD IN ICELAND. THIS SHOULD BE SHREDDED WITH THE FINGERS AND EATEN WITH BUTTER. IT VARIES IN TOUGHNESS. THE TOUGHER KIND TASTES LIKE TOE-NAILS, AND THE SOFTER KIND LIKE THE SKIN OFF THE SOLES OF ONE’S FEET.
—W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice,
Letters from Iceland, 1967
BEAT IT
Before the toilet and the refrigerator, the tool that seems inevitably tied to stockfish was the hammer. If stockfish is of good quality, it resembles a rough-hewn, soft wood a bit lighter than balsa. The fibers have to somehow be broken down.
Item, when it [cod] is taken in the far seas and it is desired to keep it for 10 or 12 years, it is gutted and its head removed and it is dried in the air and sun and in no wise by a fire, or smoked; and when this is done it is called stockfish. And when it hath been kept a long time, and it is desired to eat it, it must be beaten with a wooden hammer for a full hour, then set it to soak in warm water for a full 12 hours or more, then cook and skim it very well like beef.
—Author unknown,
Le Mesnagier de Paris, circa 1393
KILL IT: LUTEFISK
Norwegians soften stockfish to almost jelly by putting it in lye.
First the beaten stockfish is put in cold water for four or five days, but the water must be changed regularly. Then lye or pure, crumbled ash made of nothing but birch or beech is boiled in water in a pot and then set aside until the ashes fall to the bottom: then cold water is poured out of the pot into another container, where it stands until it is very clear. The fish is put in this clear water where it stays for three days and taken out of it three hours before it is to be washed in cold water and boiled like any other fish and eaten with melted butter and mustard.
—Marta María Stephensen,
A Simple Cookery Pocket Booklet for Gentlewomen, 1800
(translated by Hallfredur Örn Eiriksson)
DIVERSIONARY TACTIC
In 1982, British novelist Graham Greene, an elderly resident of Nice, started making seemingly paranoid public accusations about corruption in city hall. It was suggested that the famous author of intrigue was beginning to lose his grasp on reality. But when asked about Greene’s allegations in an interview, the mayor, Jacques Médecin, son of another famous Nice mayor, began talking about cooking and offered a recipe for stockfish. In time, the mayor slipped away to South America, where excellent salt cod is available but little in the way of true stockfish.
The following recipe, according to Médecin, who is not always taken at his word, was given to his father by a local fisherman named Barba Chiquin, which in dialect means “uncle who likes a good bottle.” Barba Chiquin would invite children over for this dish.
Take a dry stockfish, pound 100 grams on a stone with a hammer, reducing