Cod, Mark Kurlansky
Cod, Mark Kurlansky
3 Rating(s)
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Cod
A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World

Author: Mark Kurlansky

Narrator: Richard M. Davidson

Unabridged: 7 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 07/01/2011


Synopsis

“A charming fish tale and a pretty gift for your favorite seafood cook or fishing monomaniac. But in the last analysis, it’s a bitter ecological fable for our time.”—Los Angeles Times An unexpected, energetic look at world history via the humble cod fish from the bestselling author of Salt and The Basque History of the World Cod is the biography of a single species of fish, but it may as well be a world history with this humble fish as its recurring main character. Cod, it turns out, is the reason Europeans set sail across the Atlantic, and it is the only reason they could. What did the Vikings eat in icy Greenland and on the five expeditions to America recorded in the Icelandic sagas? Cod, frozen and dried in the frosty air, then broken into pieces and eaten like hardtack. What was the staple of the medieval diet? Cod again, sold salted by the Basques, an enigmatic people with a mysterious, unlimited supply of cod. As we make our way through the centuries of cod history, we also find a delicious legacy of recipes, and the tragic story of environmental failure, of depleted fishing stocks where once their numbers were legendary. In this lovely, thoughtful history, Mark Kurlansky ponders the question: Is the fish that changed the world forever changed by the world’s folly? “Every once in a while a writer of particular skill takes a fresh, seemingly improbable idea and turns out a book of pure delight. Such is the case of Mark Kurlansky and the codfish."—David McCullough

About Mark Kurlansky

Mark Kurlansky is the New York Times bestselling and James A. Beard Award–winning author of 1968: The Year That Rocked the World; Salt: A World History; The Basque History of the World; Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World; The White Man in the Tree (a collection of short stories); and several other books. Boogaloo on Second Avenue is his first novel. He lives in New York City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Miranda on December 09, 2020

A bit fishy... (I couldn't resist)Figure 1. The majestic seafaring cod. Figure 2. The majestic cod as us landlubbers know it. Cod - one of the most common fish in the sea - provided food for millions. What started as simple fishing boats has ballooned into enormous trawlers that were capable of dr......more

Goodreads review by Samantha on November 13, 2007

I got stuck with this book for AP European History book report #2. I got to chose last in the class from the book list, and so... Cod. I actually kinda liked it at the time. It was short, humorous at times, but went a little above and beyond with the fish so that the world turned and society advance......more

Goodreads review by Eric_W on February 24, 2010

There is no way you could ever get me to eat cod, despite my partial Norwegian background where they eat a variety of disgusting fish dishes, the most famous being lutefisk, a kind of rotten, spoiled gelatinous mess. But I loved this book. Kurlansky is another John McPhee, supplying all sorts of int......more

Goodreads review by Jimmy on October 18, 2020

Cod begins with two quotes: 1. Thomas Henry Huxley says that "the question of questions for mankind . . . is the ascertainment of the place which man occupies in nature and of his relations to the universe of things." I love that quote because humans, at least the "civilized" ones, think of themselves......more