What happened to cod, anyway?

Another thing we did with Alex's family was visit a kind of seaside museum/conservation center a little way up the coast from here.

Among other things, we learned about how cod was this awesome fish that all the colonists just adored... They even made it part of Massachusetts' logo for a while. So they kept fishing it and fishing it, and just loving this tasty fish! There was some concern about overfishing when they started being able to catch less, but they switched to smaller boats and were still catching so darn many that there COULDN'T be a problem!

Fast-forward a couple of centuries and the numbers of cod being caught were still plummeting and the average size was way down.... it's no surprise that the whole cod-fishing racket crashed in the early '90s. The choice was either to let cod disappear from the region entirely, or to impose strict government controls on fishing.... guess which happened.

So the good news is, the cod population is hypothetically making a comeback. The bad news is, cod is no longer the available fish-and-chips of choice.

This relates back to me because I started my life in a Massachusetts fishing town where if your fish didn't come out of the ocean THAT DAY and get cooked into a state of perfect deliciousness, it was an embarrassment and the establishment just ought to be ashamed. I used to get fish and chips about 1/2 the times our family ate out, and that was that. I remember that at a certain point, I stopped liking fish and chips because the fish just stopped tasting so good, and got kind of chewy. I thought it was a series of bad cooks, or because we were at an out-of-town restaurant--if I thought about it at all. I mostly didn't, and just got burgers instead.

Apparently that was the demise of cod and transition to haddock and other white fish as fish-and-chips staples. So now I can (unfortunately) say I have been a first-hand witness to an ecological semi-disaster. Think friendly thoughts about the recovering cod population--I really do think that if people weren't dumb we could have our cod and eat it too!

I tried real lobster a while ago

...sort of, anyway.

While Alex's parents and brother were in town, we all went to this restaurant down the street from our apartment, called The Old Salt. The food turned out to be pretty okay, but nothing fabulous. Anyway, Alex got a lobster roll that was pretty much hunks of lobster in a bun, so I ate one of the hunks.

I am torn between whether "foamy" or "rubbery" would be a better word for the texture, and I think that sums the experience up completely. Too bad!

I also had fish and chips, which was made with haddock. I miss cod....

it's been too long!

Almost a month since I showed this blog any love!

I have to admit, in the summer I am much more inclined to just eat simple, raw veggies and fruit and pretty well stay out of the kitchen.

I can at least share one of my favorite foods, which I'm now told is now a good baby-growing snack, so it's even better!

The secret Most Delicious Food In The World is avocado cut in half, drizzled with lime or lemon juice and sprinkled with salt and pepper. There is just NO WAY this can go wrong! Also it has about a bajillion units of omega-3-oils/fatty acids/whatevers, and omega-3 is apparently really important for the baby's nerve and brain development during the 3rd trimester.

Not that I wouldn't be eating them anyway. :)