Cod_ A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World - Mark Kurlansky [85]
SALT FISH WITH CREAM
Take good barrel-cod, and boil it; then take it all into flakes, and put it in a sauce-pan with cream, and season it with a little pepper; put in a handful of parsley scalded, and minced, and stove it gently till tender, and then shake it together with some thick butter and the yolks of two or three eggs, and dish it, and garnish with poached eggs and lemon sliced.
—Charles Carter,
The Compleat Practical Cook, London, 1730
Still later, flour was added. The sauce reached its height of complexity in the early twentieth century with Auguste Escof fier’s elaborate 1921 recipe, which included chunks of veal. But a simpler flour-and-cream béchamel has remained a standard salt cod sauce in Portugal, Spain, Italy, New England (creamed codfish)—wherever salt cod is eaten.
BALLS
There is no single dish more common to all cod-eating cultures than the codfish ball. At the end of the nineteenth century, while the U.S. Senate debated a proposed pure food act, Senator George Frisbie Hoare, occupying the same august seat from which Daniel Webster had once extolled the virtues of chowder, rose and delivered a lengthy oration on “the exquisite flavor of the codfish, salted, made into balls, and eaten on a Sunday morning.”
NEW ENGLAND: BETTER START ON SATURDAY
Salt fish mashed with potatoes, with good butter or pork scraps to moisten it, is nicer the second day than it was the first. The fish should be minced very fine while it is warm. After it has gotten cold and dry it is difficult to do it nicely. There is no way of preparing salt fish for breakfast, so nice as to roll it up in little balls, after it is mixed with mashed potatoes dip it into an egg and fry it golden brown.
—Lydia Maria Child,
The American Frugal Housewife, Boston, 1829
FRANCE: MORUE EN CROQUETTES
The book in which this recipe appears was a ubiquitous classic in early-twentieth-century French households.
When your salt cod is cooked, as directed above (put the salt cod in cold water and cook. Remove from heat the moment it is about to boil, skim it and cover), remove the skin and the bones and prepare a béchamel sauce, which you mix with the salt cod, then let it chill; it must be cold enough so that your salt cod can be rolled into balls; to do that the sauce must be thick.
Prepare a dozen balls and roll them in fine bread crumbs, then dip them in beaten eggs, bread them a second time and put them in a very hot fryer. When they are a handsome color, remove them, stack them in a pyramid and sprinkle them with chopped parsley.
—Tante Marie, La Véritable Cuisine de Famille, Paris, 1925
ITALY: SALTED COD CROQUETTES
The Italian Tante Marie was Ada Boni, editor of Italy’s leading women’s magazine, Preziosa. Her cookbook first came out in 1928. This recipe is from the fifteenth edition, translated by Mathilde La Rosa.
1½ pounds soaked baccalà
3 anchovy filets, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
½ tablespoon pepper
1 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese
2 slices white bread, soaked in water and squeezed dry
2 eggs lightly beaten
½ cup flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
Boil fish in water 30 minutes and cool. Bone skin and chop fine. Add anchovies, parsley, pepper, cheese, bread and eggs and mix very well. Shape into croquettes, roll in flour, dip into egg, roll in bread crumbs and fry in olive oil until brown all over. Frying time will be about four minutes on each side. Serves 4.
—Ada Boni, Talismano della Felícità, 1950
PORTUGAL: SONHOS DE BACALHAU
1 cup shredded salted codfish
1 cup flour
1 cup water
1 tablespoon butter
salt and pepper to taste
3 eggs
Soak two pieces of salt dry codfish overnight. Save water. Shred fish with your fingers in very fine pieces. Measure water that you saved