284 LABRADOR 



than an equally heavy fish from the French banks. In 

 Europe, fresh cod is regarded as best for table use when 

 caught in the coldest months, December to February. 

 The relatively high nutritive value of the Newfoundland- 

 Labrador fish is probably to be explained in large part 

 by the fact that all the year round the sea temperatures are 

 at least as low as those which bring the European cod into 

 best condition. 



< The fish can be preserved in wet bulk all winter by putting 

 enough salt between adjacent layers to prevent them from 

 touching one another. It may also be preserved as dry 

 bulk in piles covered over and well pressed down. But 

 the fish may be cured by no other means whatever than by 

 splitting open the carcass and hanging it up in the sun to 

 dry. Many of the ancient, foreign names for the animal 

 have apparently been derived from the fact that from times 

 immemorial the flesh of the drying split fish has been 

 made tenderer by beating the carcass with clubs. The 

 Norwegians call the animal the "stock" (stick) fish; in 

 Spanish it is "baccalhao" (from Lat. bacvlum, a staff, rod, 

 or small stick); in Italian, "mazza" (a club); in Gaelic, 

 "gad" (rod). The Greeks called the fish "bacchi" (rods). 

 In English the name "stock-fish" covers the haddock, 

 ling, and hake, as well as the cod. The Labrador Eskimo 

 always preserve cod by hard drying without salt. The 

 white man, of course, has devised his own methods of curing 

 the cod by smoking it like the salmon, or of turning it as 

 steaks or in boneless rolls, ready for immediate use, but the 

 commonest method is still that by dry salting, as it has been 

 for so many centuries. Since these many virtues as a food- 

 fish must be multiplied by the inconceivable numbers of 



