[Sca-cooks] Basque Food

[Stefan li Rous]

Brighid ni Chiarain mentioned:
> Mark
> Kurlansky, in "Cod: a biography of the fish that changed the world",
> says that in the Middle Ages, Basque fishermen were catching, salting,
> and selling large quantities of cod and whale.

Yes, I found that to be a very interesting book. I highly recommend  
it. There are numerous recipes in it, but I think I remember that a  
lot of them are not as well documented as I would have liked.

One of his hypothesizes that I found interesting was the the Basque  
actually found North America long before Columbus did. They were  
probably getting a lot of their cod (I think) off Newfoundland. But  
the salting (or drying?) couldn't be done on shipboard so would have  
had to have been done on nearby land. since the location of these  
fisheries was an important trade secret, they kept their knowledge of  
the New World to themselves.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
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