In the beginning was the stockfish

More often than not, it is on the back cover that a publisher stakes a book’s present and future; every word, therefore, ought to be carefully considered and weighed. Yet the authors – as anyone who takes the bait and is fortunate enough to venture into these pages will discover – have a taste for risk: for straying beyond the bounds of convention and giving themselves free rein. Not, however, to the extent of claiming that this is ‘the story of the Fish that changed the world’.
Alas, Mark Kurlansky, author of one of the most comprehensive studies of the subject, got there first. For both authors, the coup de foudre came when they encountered the phrase ‘the Fish that united Europe’, coined by Otello Fabris, a historian of medieval and Renaissance gastronomy. Europeans at heart from the very beginning, they came to realise that what had drawn them to write about cod – with a scarcely concealed partiality for ‘stockfish’ – was precisely the slender thread which, through ‘the kinship between a multitude of recipes that developed along the stockfish trade routes’, has helped – and perhaps done more than treaties themselves – to foster a common sensibility: one essential to overcoming parochial divisions and building together the great European home. Among the many strands woven into this story, art could hardly be left out. The authors therefore wished to pay tribute to the countries that formed the cradle of this brief treatise, at once serious and irreverent, yet containing within it a far broader history: a history of ancient trade, little-known political affairs, intriguing folk traditions and thrilling voyages of maritime exploration. To this end, they offer the reader a rich array of images and illustrations, the fruit of painstaking research into lesser-known works from the golden age of Flemish painting – a collection that may well grow in the next… edition.

ERMINIA GERINI TRICARICO holds a degree in Law and a Master’s degree in Criminal Law and Criminology. She worked at the Italian Chamber of Deputies. A writer of short stories, she co-authored, with Massimo Lopez and Francesco Maria Spanò, VIP Very Important Peperoncino – Crea dipendenza e fa bene alla salute (Gangemi Editore, 2021). She also contributed to the anthology Mia madre era – Donne e famiglie del Novecento (Gattomerlino Edizioni, Rome, 2018).

FRANCESCO MARIA SPANÒ is Director of Culture & Identity Development at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome, as well as an Ambassador of both the Italian Chilli Pepper Academy and the Neapolitan Academy of Salt Cod. His publications include Gerace: Città magno-greca delle cento chiese (Gangemi Editore, 2019); VIP Very Important Peperoncino; Wine: History and Stories from the Bible to Artificial Intelligence (Gangemi Editore, 2024); The Black Truffle of Calabria (Gangemi Editore, 2024); and Il cuoco segreto di casa Spanò (Gangemi Editore, 2026). He is a prominent contributor to the national debate on the history of food and culinary culture.