During the Irish Bass closed season I have been reading a fascinating book on an iconic fish species that the world loves to eat but, if you're like me, you know very little about its history and struggle for survival.
"COD by Mark Kurlansky, A biography of a fish that changed the world" is a good read, especially if you care about the oceans, as it graphically illustrates the demise of a species the was once thought to be inexhaustible due to statistics such as " Nine million eggs in a cod fish of middling size - a number that will baffle all efforts to exterminate it !"
Tales of Cod waters so rich that only wicker baskets were needed in order to hoist up untold fish to the size of, a staggering, 6 foot long and 211lbs!
Its all here to read, from the amazing, initially secret, discoveries by the Basques of rich fishing grounds off of what is now known as the US mainland, to the horrendous fatalities and hardships of the early cod fisherman, to methods of preservation after the discoveries of some bloke called Birdseye in the 1820's (I kid you not).