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harder to preserve, even if heavily salted. 

 Coastal villagers may have relished 

 them, but away from the coast they were 

 viewed with distaste, food fit only for 

 the poor. Pond-raised carp were also de- 

 voured by the devout, but it was not 

 cheap to raise them, and their muddy 

 flavor was not to everyone's taste. 



Cod, however, had become the sta- 

 ple fish of European Catholics by 

 the dawn of the great voy- 

 ages of discovery. First 

 fished by the Norse, it is a 

 flaky white flesh that is nu- 

 tritious and palatable even 

 to finicky eaters. More im- 

 portant, cod was readily 

 air-dried in northern cli- 

 mates, to produce plank- 

 like filets called stockfish 

 that would keep as long as 

 five years. Stockfish could 

 also be turned back into 

 white flesh with a few min- 

 utes of pounding and a 

 good soaking in water. It 

 satisfied the appetites of a 

 growing population of Catholics, and 

 served as a form of K rations for armies 

 and navies throughout the continent. 



Some of the history of cod has al- 

 ready been told by Mark Kurlansky in 

 his 1997 bestseller, Cod. But despite 

 their superficial similarity (both books 

 are punctuated by fish recipes that made 

 this reader head for the kitchen), Fa- 

 gan's book is heavily annotated and the 

 more scholarly of the two. It also dif- 

 fers with Kurlansky on the question — 

 always contentious — of who discov- 

 ered the rich cod-fishing grounds off 

 Newfoundland and New England. 

 Kurlansky thinks it was the Basques, 



who kept their knowledge secret for 

 centuries. Fagan makes a convincing 

 case for the merchants of Bristol, in 

 Western England, who financed ships 

 bound for the New World in increas- 

 ing numbers in the 1500s. The first set- 

 tlements in New England were fishing 

 stations, not colonies of Pilgrims, and 

 the fish trade ultimately brought Eng- 

 land more profit than trade in any other 

 commodity from the New World. 



Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (known as II Sodoma), Story of Saint 

 Benedict (detail), sixteenth century 



Whether Fagan overstresses the role 

 offish and ships on the European voy- 

 ages of discovery, his book is a reminder 

 of how important movements in his- 

 tory can be shaped by forces of every- 

 day commerce, which are often over- 

 shadowed by the glitzier themes of con- 

 quest and riches. Put this book on your 

 reading menu, even if you aren't par- 

 ticularly fond of fish on Fridays. 



Laurence A. Marschall, author of The 

 Supernova Story, is W.K.T. Sahm Professor 

 of Physics at Gettysburg College in Pennsylva- 

 nia, and director of Project CLEA, which pro- 

 duces widely used simulation software for edu- 

 cation in astronomy. 



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PICTURE CREDITS Cover: ©Mitch Epstein/Getty Images; pp. 4-5: ©Steve Bloom; p. 12(top): Kathie Atkmson/OSF; p. 

 I2(middle): ©Hip Nicklin/Minden Pictures; p. l2(bottom): ©Bernard Castelein/natureplxom; p. 13(top): ©Mary Evans 

 Picture Library; p. l3(bottom): ©Terry Deroy Gruber/Getty Images; p. l4(top): ©Marian Bacon/Animals Animals; p. 

 14(bottom left): ©Roger Wood/CORBIS; p. l4(bottom right): Haiinah Black; p. 16: Courtesy of the author; p. 18: ©Yale 

 Goldman; pp. 20&22: ©Alex Wild 2004/2005; pp. 36-37: ©Seth Perlman/ Associated Press; pp. 38&41: Illustrations by lan 

 Worpole; pp. 39&40: © 2005 Gary Braasch; p. 42(left): ©Ench Lessmg/Art Resource, NY; pp. 42-43 (middle): ©The British 

 Museum, London; p. 43(top): Photograph from the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico (Abrams book), ©Javier 

 Hinojosa; p. 43(bottom): ©HIP/ Art Resource, NY; p. 44(left): ©Malcolm E. Osman/Pitt Rivers Museum; p. 44(nght): 

 ©2006 State Hermitage Museum, Russia; p. 45(top left & right): ©Jeff Saward/www.Iabynnthos.net; p.45(top middle): 

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 pp. 48-49: ©John C. Abbott Nature Photography; pp. 49(inset) 50 & 54: ©Christie Van Cleve; p. 51 :Map by Joe LeMonmer; 

 pp. 52-53: Illustration by Patricia J. Wynne; p. 56(top): ©Susan M. Glascock; p. 56(bottom): ©Pat & Chuck Blackley; p. 57: 

 Map by Joe LeMonnier; p. 58: ©Scala/Art Resource, NY; p. 59: ©2005 Gary Braasch; p. 60: ©Anne Wertheim Rosenfeld; 

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