Salt cod

Dried and salted cod, sometimes referred to simply as salt cod, is cod which has been preserved by drying after salting. Cod which has been dried without the addition of salt is . Salt cod was long a major export of the North Atlantic region, and has become an ingredient of many cuisines around the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean. With the sharp decline in the world stocks of cod, other salted and dried white fish are sometimes marketed as "salt cod", and the term has become to some extent a generic name.

Dried and salted cod has been produced for over 500 years in Newfoundland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands, and most particularly in Norway where it is called klippfisk, literally "cliff-fish". Traditionally it was dried outdoors by the wind and sun, often on cliffs and other bare rock-faces. Today klippfisk is usually dried indoors with the aid of electric heaters.

The production of salt cod dates back at least 500 years, to the time of the European discoveries of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. When explorer Jacques Cartier discovered the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in what is now Canada and claimed it for France, he noted the presence of a thousand Basque boats fishing for cod.

Salt cod formed a vital item of international commerce between the New World and the Old, and formed one leg of the so-called triangular trade. Thus it spread around the Atlantic and became a traditional ingredient not only in Northern European cuisine, but also in Mediterranean, West African, Caribbean, and Brazilian cuisines.

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