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Article:
How Salt Cod conquered the World by: Richard Robinson 'as ill luck would have it, it happened to be Friday and there was nothing to be had at the inn but some pieces of fish, which is called Abadexo in Castile, Bacallao in Andalucía, Curadillo in some places'' Cervantes: Don Quixote, 1605. We here in Britain/US might think of it as salt cod, or stockfish, were we to think about it at all - which is unlikely. But as in so many other ways, Spain differs from us too on the question of salt cod. Bacalao (to give its most widely-used title) is elevated to legendary, near mythical status, a dish of iconic significance in festival and fiesta, a staple of such immense substance it once saved a city from siege. For the feeding of the multitude, the Forty Fishes aren't even in it. With their holds stuffed with bacalao, Biscayan whalers crossed the North Atlantic to Newfoundland, and the Spanish conquistadors reached the New World. In the Spanish language, cortar el bacalao, to 'cut the cod', is to be the boss. Concerning cod, written records are sketchy, but we can draw on at least a few sure facts. Certainly the first Carlist War of the 1830s is a matter of historic record, as is the siege of Bilbao. A footnote to the conflict describes how a shopkeeper of that city, before the outbreak of hostilities, ordered 'some 20 or 22' bacalao from a trader. Of course, in Spanish this would have read '20 o 22', an order which some sloppy clerk mis-recorded as '20
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