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it to a kind of powder. For 100 grams of stockfish, crush 4 cloves of garlic in a mortar. Heat olive oil in a skillet until it smokes and brown 2 pébréta [hot peppers]. When the oil starts to smoke, toss in the mixture of dried stockfish and garlic. When this preparation is lightly browned, spread it on a piece of pain de compagne [country-style bread] and wolf it down.

—Jacques Médecin, ex-mayor of Nice

Médecin warned against trying the recipe unless you have a well-stocked wine cellar to deal “with a thirst which will last at least four or five days.”

Also see page 61.

THE BAD NEWS AT WALDEN POND

IT IS RUMORED THAT IN THE FALL THE COWS HERE ARE SOMETIMES FED COD’S-HEAD! THE GODLIKE PART OF THE COD, WHICH, LIKE THE HUMAN HEAD, IS CURIOUSLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE, FORSOOTH HAS BUT LITTLE LESS BRAIN IN IT,—COMING TO SUCH AN END! TO BE CRAUNCHED BE COWS! I FELT MY OWN SKULL CRACK WITH SYMPATHY. WHAT IF THE HEADS OF MEN WERE TO BE CUT OFF TO FEED THE COWS OF A SUPE- RIOR ORDER OF BEINGS WHO INHABIT THE ISLANDS IN THE ETHER? AWAY GOES YOUR FINE BRAIN, THE HOUSE OF THOUGHT AND INSTINCT, TO SWELL THE CUD OF A RUMINANT ANIMAL!—HOWEVER, AN INHABITANT ASSURED ME THAT THEY DID NOT MAKE A PRACTICE OF FEEDING COWS ON COD-HEADS; THE COWS MERELY WOULD EAT THEM SOMETIMES.

—Henry David Thoreau,

Cape Cod, 1851

Thoreau made these observations on a trip to Cape Cod the same year that Herman Melville’s Moby Dick would describe Nantucket cows wandering with cod’s heads on their feet. Thoreau was right that the heads were not likely to be offered to a cow, but the reason was that people like to eat them.

NOT THE LIPS: FRIED COD HEAD

Obtain 4 medium size cod heads. More for a large family. After they have been sculped—(to sculp heads: with sharp knife cut head down through to the eyes, grip back of head firmly and pull)—prepare to cook as follows:

Cut heads in two, skin and remove lips. Wash well and dry. Dip both sides of head in flour, sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Fry in fat until Golden Brown on both sides. Serve with potatoes and green peas, or any other vegetable preferred.

—Mrs. Lloyd G. Hann, Wesleyville, Newfoundland,

from Fat-back & Molasses: A Collection of

Favourite Old Recipes from Newfoundland & Labrador,

edited by Ivan F. Jesperson, St. John’s, 1974

NOT THE EYES: FISHERMAN’S COD-HEAD CHOWDER

8 cod heads, the eyes removed

3 oz salt pork

2 sliced onions

6 sliced potatoes

butter

salt and pepper

Try out (render) the pork. Add the onions and fry until golden. Lay in a kettle, then add the cod heads and potatoes. Cover with cold water and cook till the potatoes are done. Season; add a good chunk of butter.

Fishermen think removing the bones is sissy. Cod head of course contains the cods’ tongues and cheeks. Sometimes, too, the cod’s air sacs, known as the “lights” or “sounds,” were fried in salt pork and then added to the chowder.

—complied by Harriet Adams, comments by N. M. Halper,

Vittles for the Captain: Cape Cod Sea-Food Recipes,

Provincetown, 1941

Also see pages 46-47.

MARBLEHEAD

In 1750, Captain Francis Goelet claimed that Marblehead, Massachusetts, was famous for its large, well-fed children who, he said, were “the biggest in North America.” According to Goelet, “the chief cause is attributed to their feeding on cod’s head which is their principal diet.”

CAPE COD KIDS DON’T USE NO SLEDS,

HAUL AWAY, HEAVE AWAY,

THEY SLIDE DOWN HILLS ON CODFISH HEADS.

—Sea shanty

ICELANDIC WISDOM

Until this century, the dried heads were carried inland by pony, with racks mounting sixty heads sticking out of either side. Both Norwegians and Icelanders pick them apart for snacks. “You know,” said Reykjavik chef Úlfar Eysteinsson, “you just sit around the table talking and crr-r-ack”—he made a motion as though pulling apart a cod head.

In 1914, the entire practice of eating cod head was denounced by the prominent Icelandic banker Tryggvi Gunnarsson for that greatest of Nordic sins, impracticality. He said the food value was not worth the