Portuguese Ignore Threat To Christmas Cod, Tuck In
Date: 21-Dec-04
Country: PORTUGAL
Author: Ian Simpson
God, of course, is eternal. But the same can't be said of Portugal's Christmas dinner staple.
The cod supply that the Portuguese rely on is not threatened for now, but scientists fear overfishing worldwide might mean the white-fleshed sea fish will be wiped out.
But shrinking stocks are not enough to make the Portuguese, the world's biggest cod eaters and even fans of cod ice cream, put down their forks, especially as Christmas approaches.
Getting a start on her cod buying, Maxima Vilaverde picked through stacks of dried faces and tongues at a Lisbon waterfront grocery store alongside bins of board-stiff split and salted cod.
A bagful of the strong-smelling delicacy on her arm, she said she planned Christmas dinner built around the Portuguese classic of cod stew made with cabbage and potatoes.
"Starting this month, that's traditionally the time to eat cod," said Vilaverde, a 55-year-old clinical analyst. "Eating cod, any way you like it, that's built right into our routine."
Asked if Portuguese could give up the flaky, versatile flesh, she said, "I could do without, but not totally -- just eating now and then, maybe."
BUNDLED LIKE FIREWOOD
Counter assistant Rui Bertolo, knife flashing as he trimmed codfish slabs and tied them into bundles like yellowed firewood, said cod sales went up 50 percent at Christmas.
"Extinction, people talk about it, but that's not happening any time soon," he said.
Portugal, the saying goes, has a codfish recipe for every day of the year. Eighty percent protein and ideal for curing and storing for long voyages, Atlantic cod, or Gadus morhua, fed the explorers who spread the Portuguese language to three more continents.
In Western Europe's poorest country, cod has been a cheap source of protein for centuries. The nation of 10 million people is still by far the world's biggest per capita consumer, at seven kg (15 pounds) a year, according to government data.
Cod is grilled, boiled, baked or fried. It is eaten in salads, mashed with eggs and fried potatoes, baked with mayonnaise and topped with mashed potatoes, or doused in garlic and butter sauce. There is one souffle-like dish considered so perfect it is called "Spiritual".
AN ICON
"Cod is an icon, an emblem, almost a national symbol," said Joao da Costa e Silva, an owner of the upscale Codfish House restaurant, which has 40 cod dishes on its menu.
But there has been a price for the feast in Portugal and other cod-eating countries, like Brazil, the world's biggest single market. The fish are disappearing.
Since 1970, the world harvest of the Atlantic cod species has plummeted 70 percent, to 890,000 tonnes in 2002, according to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation.
This October, the Copenhagen-based International Council for the Exploration of the Seas called for a ban on cod fishing in some of Europe's northern waters next year. The European Union uses the ICES advice as the basis for its fishing quotas.
Only a few Portuguese boats still fish for cod, and Portugal gets most of its supply from the frigid Barents Sea north of Norway. Its cod stock is the world's biggest and the ICES considers it to be in decent shape.
DROP THE FISH
Even though the Barents Sea avoided the ICES's ban recommendation, Portuguese environmentalists plan to renew their annual Christmas call to give up the fish.
The fact that the plea is almost entirely ignored does not deter them, said Helder Spinola, head of the Quercus environmental group.
"You've got to make people realise the need to safeguard this resource, to safeguard this species for future generations," he said.
Costa e Silva, the restaurant owner, said he had contingency plans if cod became even more scarce, including using a similar fish from Brazil.
But the spectre of extinction would not keep people from tucking in to cod, he said after a lunch with friends of cod carpacci
