A big thanks to Kathy L for bringing this to my attention. If it wasn't for Google Chrome, I would never have remembered my password to log back into DR1. Anyway, regarding Cod & Bacalao. My father and his brothers grew up on Bacalao in Bonao (Wait! that rhymes!) My father's last name is Genao, he ate Bacalao, in Bonao -- which is located in Cibao 3x times a week (Genao + Bacalao + Bonao + Cibao ( there's a song somewhere in there!)). True story.. They also ate a lot of Arenque as well. This is back in the 1940's & 50's.
As a result, so did my brother and I -- we both grew up eating a lot of Bacalao. Now, imagine my surprise one day I'm visiting my father from Norway, (circa 1991), and I'm inside a little colmado in Bonao near my father's house when I ask for some Bacalao that my father sent me to purchase. For some reason, they grabbed the entire box of salted Cod and placed it on the counter. On the side of the box, it said, "Product of Norway" (it may have been in Spanish, I can't remember). Now, again, I'm visiting my father from Norway. I live in Norway, had already been living in Norway for quite some time, and I didn't even know that Bacalao was Cod (called Torsk in Norwegian). Of course, I knew Bacalao was fish, but i had no idea it was Cod. I love Cod. I ate it -- and this will sound a like a complete exaggeration -- at least 4x a week in Norway. I still eat it two to three times a week here in Ohio. They sell fresh filets of Cod at Costco (not frozen, but fresh!)
The reason why I ate so much Cod in Norway for 25yrs is because, in Norway, you can buy it in nearly every store already pre-made as "Fiskekake (Fish Cakes), it's a common Norwegian dish that requires no cooking -- and I don't cook!! So, I ate them for breakfast, sometimes lunch, and then again at dinner, and I often fell asleep with it in my mouth and woke up in the middle of the night and finished it. So, technically, I ate it 4x times a day!
Norwegians all grow up eating Cod.
I sometimes, not often, bought it fresh in a tomato & vegetable sauce at local Norwegian stores (sort of like how the Dominicans, Portuguese, & Spanish make it). I find Cod to be probably my 2nd favorite fish, after Halibut -- which I also ate a couple times a week in Norway. I also ate a lot of smoked salmon, but after a couple decades of smoked salmon, you get completely burned out on. I also ate a lot Mackerel, but again, that's also a fish that's easy to get burned out on.
So, yeah, Cod (Torsk) is my go to fish that I eat by far the most of. In Norway, There's a fantastic, award winning book called "Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World," by Mark Kurlansky (He also wrote the history of Salt -- another award winning book.)
So, again, a big thanks to Kathy L for bringing this to my attention.
