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Tørrfisk — Stockfish

Tørrfisk

Specialised

Cod split, hung on wooden racks and dried by cold Arctic air and wind — no salt, no smoke, no fire — for two to three months from February. It keeps for years, weighs a fifth of the fresh fish, and it is the OLDEST CONTINUOUS EXPORT TRADE IN NORTHERN EUROPE, documented from the Viking Age, commercialised through Bergen from the 12th century, and still sent in quantity to Italy — above all to Liguria and the Veneto — as well as to Nigeria, Croatia, Portugal and Spain. ⚠ NORWAY SUPPLIED THE FISH; THE DISHES ARE THEIRS. Baccalà mantecato is Venetian and bacalhau is Portuguese, and neither becomes Norwegian because the cod was.

Atlas — where and when

Communities and languages

Languages: Norwegian (Bokmål)

What is recorded

  • Stockfish drying documented as a Norwegian export trade — the oldest continuous export trade in northern Europe. documented
  • Stockfish drying is documented from the Viking Age and is the oldest continuous export trade in northern Europe. Norway supplied the fish; the dishes made from it abroad — Venetian baccalà mantecato, Ligurian stoccafisso, Portuguese bacalhau, Nigerian preparations — belong to those cuisines and are not recorded as Norwegian. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • influenced Italian documented

    Norwegian stockfish is the raw material of Ligurian stoccafisso and Venetian baccalà mantecato — Italian dishes made from a Norwegian product.

Recorded as relating to this foodway

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.