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Semiotics of the Cod Hi, good afternoon, I’m João Pedro, And I’m Nuno, We’re coming to you from the middle of the Atlantic, the island of São Miguel in the Azores, where we’re doing an artist in residency. The last time we were on an island, also for a residency, was in Skrova, Lofoten, invited by LIAF to develop a project for the two thousand nineteen festival. When the curators of the festival invited us, we imagined it was because we’re Portuguese and the Portuguese have a long obsession with cod, or bacalhau, to the point where this fish has become the main Portuguese dish and a symbol of our identity. Bacalhau isn’t found along the Portuguese coast, which makes our appetite for it even harder to justify. After realizing we knew nothing about bacalhau, we decided to explore the idea in more depth, even when the festival assured us it wasn’t the reason why we were invited. The little about bacalhau we knew came from the TV ads of our childhood, which said the best bacalhau was from Norway. For us bacalhau was never just codfish, we always associated it with its provenance, or nationality. We had yet to learn the geopolitical reasons why in the 80s the traditional bacalhau from Newfoundland was swapped for Norway, namely the expansion of Canada’s exclusive economic zone and the collapse of the Grand Banks cod stocks where the Portuguese fleet had fished since the 16th century, as well as the technological advances of the fishing industry which made the method used by the Portuguese - line fishing in dory boats – obsolete. In Ílhavo, in the north of Portugal, there is a Maritime Museum almost entirely dedicated to cod fishing. It was from this region that for many years the fleets and their crews would leave for Newfoundland. On a previous visit, before we went to Skrova, we came across stories of how often people from Greenland would show up at the museum looking for their ancestors in the museum’s crew logs. At a later date, we would discover a more or less obscure plan to populate Greenland, in which Portuguese fisherman were encouraged to settle there and also to get to know local women. This fact added a sexual dimension to our thematic approach. Our worldview is also a breeding ground for bars of ill-repute frequented by sailors, fishermen and prostitutes, inevitably found on the riverfront of all port cities. In Cais do Sodré, Lisbon, there is a street where all the names of its bars reflect the seafaring nature of their clientele –Liverpool, Roterdam, Copenhagen, and the one we used to frequent the most, Oslo. Our first idea was to present at LIAF a kind of sex shop, with sex toys in cod skin. The sex shop would be the summation of this roving eroticism we associated with cod fishing. At the same time as we were putting together this project, the festival had asked us to think of an activity involving the local community. So that was how the idea of a cooking experience using a traditional Portuguese cod recipe first came about. The idea was to cook the bacalhau à Brás, a recipe we make whenever we invite friends to our home. As we explained the recipe, we would also talk about our research. The way how the Portuguese by chance came across the codfish stocks of Newfoundland, when they were trying to get to India via the North Atlantic in the 16th century; the way how a plentiful fish that was also cheap and easy to keep appealed to Portuguese tastes, becoming the food of choice for the poor, the transatlantic boat crews and slaves; the way how the constant orders to fast imposed by the Catholic church in later centuries made it immensely desirable; the way how the Estado Novo dictatorial regime, in power until nineteen seventy four, appropriated this symbol in the popular imagination to consolidate and revive the sea-faring vocation of the Portuguese people. It was during this period that the consecration of the cod fishing industry took place, through an implicit parallel with the Portuguese voyages of the so-called Discoveries. The mythical figure of the fisherman/sailor, reminiscent of the Portuguese navigators and with the connivance of the Catholic church, led to a ritualisation of all aspects of the cod fishing industry – in World War Two, the Portuguese fishing fleet was baptized the White Fleet, painting its boats white to symbolize peace. Before setting off, the boats would congregate in Belém, Lisbon, where the largest number of monuments celebrating the Portuguese Discoveries are found, to be blessed by the cardinal Cerejeira, the most important religious figure in the country and an advisor to Salazar, the dictator. The Blessing of the Fleet became a special occasion. An outcome of this state propaganda initiative would be the commissioning of “The Quest of the Schooner Argus” a book by Allan Villiers, a well-known writer of travel books which became an immediate bestseller in Portugal and abroad. Artists also played an important role in the mythification of cod fishing and its protagonists through their constant representation in painting and sculpture on the facades of industry buildings. The basis for what today remains firmly in the public imagination can be traced to this moment. Our grandparents believed the best bacalhau came from Newfoundland. But for we who grew up in the 80s, the best was from Norway. The virtual wiping out of cod stocks in the waters of Newfoundland and the following cuts in fishing quotas, alongside changes in the geopolitical landscape and economic relations that took place after Portugal joined the European Community, undid the ancestral ties the country had with this region of the planet. Nonetheless it was vital to convince the country that its symbol, in other words bacalhau, could have another provenance and still be trusted. Just as our previous generations had been spoon fed the propaganda of the state, we were now the target of advertising campaigns. We would call our cooking performance “Semiotics of the Cod” in reference to “Semiotics of the Kitchen”, Martha Rossler’s film from 1975 which took the format of a TV cooking show to expose this domestic setting as a stage for violence against women. The story we wished to tell about the history of cod was also one of extreme violence dictated by economic and political factors; a story of abuse inflicted upon those forced to keep up fishing quotas and even upon the fish itself, a victim of large-scale overfishing. It was the day we cooked bacalhau for the townsfolk at Skrova Community Centre, when we realized our project for LIAF had come full circle. In Lisbon we’d buy the salted cod, fished in Norway, take it in our luggage with us and cook it with the help of the public in Svolvaer. We went in search of more stories and images, reflecting on them and on the contexts from where they emerged. We decided to go on writing about cod, and later publish our findings in a book. The texts we wrote, a fluid history of fluids, as we used to call them, were a growing compilation of diary entries, ideas, concepts, historical facts, and trivia about cod. Clearly also, salt cod was a springboard to talk about all kinds of things, where the idea of trade was unavoidable. As a business, negotiation or as a migratory process. As opposed to a dogmatic conception of history, we wanted to explore a fluid possibility. For all the concrete objects, artefacts and documents we could find on the history of Portugal’s relationship with cod, we wished to offer an alternative, fluid version of events. One that was not visible. That slipped from our grasp, between our fingers. A tale of salty water and stormy weather. Of the cod liver oil we all had to swallow when we were kids. Of the temporary worker communities that come together on board and in the ports. Of blood, sweat, tears and sperm. The exchange of fluids. Our performance was a kind of metonymic ritual, where at the end we served and ate everything, literally. The words. The images. And the food. What was cooked was not a fish, but rather something symbolic. In Portugal, cod was cooked in politics, in economic relations, in religious beliefs, in the need for social cohesion and in its cultural symbolism. We use to say there are one thousand and one ways to cook cod. To that I would add, there are one thousand and one ways to cook symbols. And just like eating bacalhau, we end up devouring these symbols without ever questioning why. There’s always more to what we eat than what we put in our mouths.