The Salt Roads

How Fish Made a Culture

John Goodlad

• Publisher: Birlinn
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781780277912
• eBook ISBN: 9781788855372
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

This is the extraordinary story of how salt fish from Shetland became one of the staple foods of Europe, powered an economic boom and inspired artists, writers and musicians.It ranges from the wild waters of the North Atlantic, the ice-filled fjords of Greenland and the remote islands of Faroe to the dining tables of London's middle classes, the bacalao restaurants of Spain and the Jewish shtetls of Eastern Europe.As well as following the historical thread and exploring how very different cultures were drawn together by the salt fish trade, John Goodlad meets those whose lives revolve around the industry in the twenty-first century and addresses today's pressing themes of sustainability, climate change and food choices.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Map
• Prologue – Pitch Dark
• 1 The Dutch and the Basques
• 2 The Great Cod Race
• 3 Philadelphia
• 4 The Hungry Forties
• 5 Disko Bay
• 6 The Poet
• 7 Brains in Their Fingers
• 8 Heglies Bank
• 9 Beach Boys
• 10 The Texan Eco Warriors
• 11 The Smugglers
• 12 ‘A Sight Most Interesting and Curious’
• 13 Vaila Mae
• 14 The Old Grey Widow Maker
• 15 ‘Haal in da Drogue’
• 16 ‘I loved her as much as my own wife’
• 17 A Society Transformed
• 18 Remnants of Norn
• 19 The Big Bang
• 20 The Herring Capital of Europe
• 21 What Is History?
• 22 Valkyrie
• 23 An Epic of Steam and Steel
• 24 A Night at the Drift Net
• Postscript – What Now for Fishing?
• Further Reading
• Index
• Plates Section