Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
LATIN NAME
Gadus morhua
SEASONALITY
Avoid February–April when spawning
HABITAT
Northern Atlantic
MCS RATING
2–5
REC MINIMUM SIZE
50cm
MORE RECIPES
Pollack with courgettes and cannellini beans; Herbed pouting fish fingers; Crumbed whiting goujons with curried egg tartare
SOURCING
It’s undeniable that cod is a fine fish. People who like fish love cod, and even people who don’t really like fish fall for its charms. The big boneless fillets of sweet, meaty flesh have made it the family-friendly choice, for fish fingers, trips to the chippy and home cooking. But cod is, literally, a victim of its own success. It got so big that it became more a brand than a fish. But it’s the fish, not the brand, that’s in peril.
The collapse of the Newfoundland cod fishery at the end of the last century was a man-made disaster of appalling proportions and illustrated just how very finite fish populations are when faced with the indiscriminate power of today’s fishing technologies. Our own North Sea fishery was taken to the brink of collapse too.
Cod are big, lazy bottom-dwellers. They lurk in the icy Atlantic, hoovering up pretty much whatever comes their way with their gaping mouths. They can live for 25 years and reach 90kg or more, but they grow slowly. They don’t reach sexual maturity until 4–7 years of age, at around 50cm length, and this sedate pace of development makes them susceptible to overfishing. Voracious, non-selective methods net too many immature cod, eroding the population from the base upwards.
The global response to the cod crisis was, of necessity, dramatic and hard-hitting, from the 1992 moratorium on cod fishing off Newfoundland (still in place) to the decommissioning of huge numbers of UK fishing boats. Coupled with measures such as temporary closures, more selective methods and quota cuts, those actions have had an effect. Cod numbers are recovering in some areas. And other, fairly isolated, parts of the world have fished for cod sensibly pretty much all along. Icelandic stocks, for example, didn’t suffer the same drastic drops as other zones.
But there are extreme variations in the condition of cod stocks worldwide. Our own North Sea cod is in recovery but stocks are not healthy yet. Yet, there is already impatience, fuelled by economic factors, for us to ramp up the pressure on cod again.
One reason for cod’s continuing precarious status is the iniquitous practice of ‘discarding’, which sees thousands of tonnes of perfectly edible fish being wasted every year. Since cod are usually found on grounds abundant in other species, boats that have caught their full quota of cod will keep on fishing, hoping to catch other valuable fish for which they still have quota. Any ‘over-quota’ cod that turn up will be ‘discarded’ – dead. Tonnes of juvenile fish are also thrown back.
Thanks to pressure from a swathe of NGOs, including Greenpeace, the MCS, Client Earth, and our own Fish Fight campaign, a series of measures that will eventually amount to a ban on discards is being phased in as part of the EU Common Fisheries Policy. Only time will tell if these measures will be effectively and fairly implemented and lead to lasting stock recovery.
ICES (the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) is a global body of scientists that assesses European fish stocks. They describe cod stocks in Icelandic waters, the northeast Arctic and the eastern Baltic as being at a sustainable level and well managed. Some cod from those regions is ranked as a good choice in the MCS’s goodfishguide.org and some has gained accreditation from the MSC’s scheme – you’ll see it in shops bearing the MSC’s blue ‘tick’ label. If you are set on cod, MSC-certified fish is the way to go – particularly line-caught.
But please consider some of the far less fraught alternatives. Cod is dominant because it’s been in the market so long, but there is very little you can do with cod that you can’t also do with pollack, coley, pouting or whiting. Their flesh may not match the curdy whiteness of cod and they are often smaller, but they taste just as good.
We need to knock cod from its piscine pedestal because, while it may have narrowly avoided extinction, it is still in difficult straits. It’s time to cast our nets a little wider.
Fishing methods for cod
Cod are often caught by ‘otter’ trawl, using a large net, shaped like the top of a bottle. As the net is dragged over the seabed, the wide opening ‘herds’ the fish, which fall back into the narrow ‘cod end’. Like any trawling, this involves some disturbance to the seabed (though it’s not as destructive as beam-trawling). However, if the stock is healthy and the fishery well managed, otter-trawled cod is still rated as sustainable by the MCS.
But cod caught on a line is always going to be a sounder option. Line-fishing can target species much more effectively than a huge net and also results in a better quality catch (fish often die or get damaged in nets).
Longline fishing, where an extremely long line, to which many shorter, baited lines are attached, is laid out, is not without its problems. It can pose a particular threat to sea birds, which grab the baited hooks then get pulled underwater. But measures such as bird-scaring devices are alleviating this problem in some fisheries.
Handline fishing is one of the most sustainable methods. These days, that may mean a 200-metre line with eight hooks attached, ‘jigged’ up and down by computer and automatically reeled in when a set weight of fish is detected, but it doesn’t damage the environment.
Salt cod
Although it has never really caught on in Britain, salt cod is popular in much of Europe. The dried fish is hard and leathery but, rehydrated in plenty of fresh water, it regains tenderness. In traditional brandade (where it’s beaten with olive oil and soaked bread and/or mashed potatoes) or a rich, fishy stew, it contributes a unique, highly seasoned marine flavour. Happily, other white fish, including coley and pollack, can be salted very successfully – whether ‘hard’-salted, or just given a light salting for an hour or two (see recipes Coley with Bacon, Apples and Hazelnuts and Pollack with Courgettes and Cannellini Beans).
COD WITH FENNEL, CAPERS AND TOMATOES
This beautifully simple one-pan dish works well with other white fish, such as bream, coley, gurnard, haddock, hake, pollack, pouting and even freshwater zander. Serves 2
1–2 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil
1 fennel bulb, trimmed and finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, sliced
1 tbsp capers, rinsed, drained and roughly chopped
250g cherry tomatoes, halved
2 meaty cod fillets (about 175g each)
2 tbsp crème fraîche
Juice of ½ lemon
Chopped parsley, to finish (optional)
Sea salt and black pepper
Heat 1 tbsp oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the fennel, with a pinch of salt, and sauté for 5–6 minutes until beginning to soften and colour a little. Add the garlic, cook for a further 2 minutes, then add the capers and tomatoes. Sweat, stirring now and again, for 10–12 minutes or until everything is softened.
Season the cod fillets well on both sides. Push the vegetables to the edges, add a dash of oil to the middle of the pan and place the cod, skin side down, in the pan. Cook over a medium heat for 4–6 minutes, depending on the thickness of your fillets. Flip the fillets over and cook for a further 2–3 minutes or until the fish is just cooked through.
Transfer the cooked fish to warmed plates. Add the crème fraîche to the pan and mix through the vegetables. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed, adding a squeeze or two of lemon juice to bring together all the flavours.
Spoon the vegetables on to the plates with the fish and sprinkle with chopped parsley, if using. Serve immediately.
