Chapter IX. The Cod Commerce and Industry 



Fresh and salted cod is consumed in great quantities in the regions 

 bordering the places of great production: Norway, Great Britain and 

 Scotland' in particular, Canada, Newfoundland, and northern United States. 

 But that which gives this industry and commerce exceptional importance 

 is outside this regional consumption. This fish, caught in the cold seas, 

 finds, after suitable preparation, a market of the greatest importance a- 

 mong the people living in the warm regions of the eastern hemisphere. 



This is because the quality of its flesh is such that it is readily pre- 

 served by salting and drying. 



From time immemorial, the cod has held a place of first rank in the 

 diet of certain countries where the high temperatures and lack of rapid 

 transportation make impossible the distribution of fresh fish, and where 

 it is an advantageous substitute thanks to this quality of conservation. It 

 is thus that long before the origin of cod fishing in Newfoundland, dried 

 cod was imported in great quantities in Portugal where it was, and still is, 

 a basic food item. The warmer regions of France were equally, since 

 earliest times, centers of great cod consumption, and they remain today, 

 by habit, those where this trade is still most active. In the Middle Ages 

 and during the following centuries, the only two sea fish which were im- 

 portant in the interior of France were salted or smoked herring in the 

 north and salted cod in the south. 



In the temperate regions, a great deal of cod is sold green- salted, 

 that is, as salted aboard the vessels without further drying. 



The origin of splitting and salting cod, such as is still practiced 

 aboard the modern trawlers, is lost in the darkness of the past. In France, 

 the splitters and salters were working, without any doubt, prior to the 12th 

 century, the same kind of work which their distant disciples follow in the 

 20th century. 



At the time of unloading, the green- salted cod, as soon as taken from 

 the hold of the vessel, are sorted into three categories: large, medium, 

 and small. Gathered in piles of determined weight, they are transported 

 to establishments where they are further treated. First washed and 

 drained, they are piled in racks or hangars with dry salt, or preserved in 

 vats in a saturated pickle. 



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