Salt Codfish Research Paper

Growing up full-blooded Portuguese from immigrant parents and grandparents, there are strong cultural traditions that we will always stand by. Salted codfish, also known as Bacalhau, is a famous Portuguese dish that is made in many different ways and constantly utilized in our day-to-day life. The most popular way to prepare this dish is "bras style" which means that it is sautéed in a pan with onions and potatoes and finished off in the oven to broil then topped off with black olives. This is the most common way this dish is prepared and is usually seen at special event such as Christmas, birthdays, Easter, and usually for diner on Fridays during lent. Although, this is the most popular traditional way to make this dish, as time went on individuals …show more content…
So, there was no way to preserve food in the way that we do now, except for salting. Salting food works by drawing out the moisture from the item making it a hostile environment for bacteria to live and reproduce in, leaving the item perfectly safe to eat for long periods of time. In 1497 the Portuguese cam across Newfoundland and other than the discovery of land, they personally discovered something else, something they could bring home, Cod Fish. They began fishing heavily in the Grand Banks of the coast of Newfoundland and soon realized that there was an abundance of cod in this area and took advantage of this realization. They soon filled up their boats and headed back home to Portugal, however by the time they arrived home their entire catch was spoiled and inedible. After a few trips, they realized that they needed to figure out how they could preserve the fish for the long journey back home, and then they remembered that salting would work. On their next trip over to Canada, when they had the catch onboard ship this time they salted all the fish before they left in attempts to keep the fish from spoiling on the way back. Lo and Behold, it worked; the catch was still good by the time they arrived home. Of course, big fisherman other fish however they put their main focus on cod for one good reason; cod was a good fish to transport as well because the fish is very lean, Fat spoils very quickly so being that the cod has little to no fat on it allowed it to make the trip without spoiling. The Mediterranean during this time was hit with a bad harvest of crops and an unfortunate sparse catch of fishes within the area, their only hopes of food were the boats coming from the east with the very desired salt fish. Due to the popularity of the salt fish transport across the Atlantic, salt became a very sought out commodity since