The Cod's Tale

Once codfish was so plentiful that explorers reported being able simply to dip baskets into the ocean to collect them. For many hundreds of years people took it for granted, assuming that the millions of eggs that every female cod lays meant that there would always be millions of fish for man to eat-and get rich from. It was the abundance of cod and the way it could be easily dried and preserved that that allowed the Vikings to cross the cold Atlantic Ocean to America, and that fed Christopher …