Issue 4 (89)

“THEY HAVE THEIR TAILS IN THEIR MOUTHS — AND THEY’RE ALL OVER CRUMBS”: COD IN BRITISH GASTRONOMIC CULTURE
Year 2025 Number 4 (89)
Pages 77-85 Type scientific article
UDC 94(410):641.55 BBK 63.3(4Âåë)+36.997(4Âåë)
Authors Domnina Ekaterina G.
Topic NORTH SEA FISH IN THE MIDDLE AGES AND MODERN TIMES
Summary The article discusses the practices of cooking and using cod fish in British gastronomic culture from the Middle Ages to the present day based on archaeological data, textual, pictorial and video sources. Special attention is paid to the socio-cultural existence of cod in different historical eras, including the linguistic aspect. In Britain, its preparation technics included salting, drying by wind and sun, boiling, baking and frying. The peculiarity of cod consumption in Great Britain is noted, as it changed its status from a food for the elites in the early Middle Ages to a food for the mid- and low-income Victorians and its transformation into a fish for the working class and then for all social groups in 20th century Britain. All this predetermined the development of the current multi-cultural culture of fish and cod consumption, particularly in modern Britain. The spread of modern ideas about fish diets as a healthier alternative to those containing meat echoes medieval beliefs about fish as a good food for a pious and thus a proper lifestyle. In this context, modern Britons just as their predecessors still consider individual preferences in fish consumption as a criterion to help to establish a person’s socio-cultural status.
Keywords gastronomic culture, Britain, cod, fish consumption, national cuisine, food history, national identity, fish and chips
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