Venice cuisine and stockfish are inseparable. Their bond goes back to 1432, when Venetian merchant Pietro Querini shipwrecked in Røst, an islet in the breathtakingly beautiful Lofoten Archipelago.
Querini had set sail in Crete with a load of Malvasia wine, perfume, spice, and cotton. His destination was the Flanders, but the cold North Sea had different plans. Most of his crew perished at sea, but one lifeboat managed to land a deserted, snow-capped island. Survivors drank melted snow and ate seafood, until villagers from a nearby island met them and nursed them back to health. The indigenous population had a peculiar way to preserve their staple food, Atlantic cod: they air-dried cod for months, to the point the fish grew stiff as wood. After a long way back home through sea and land, Pietro Querini brought some stockfish (‘stick fish’) with him, and the Venetian called it bacalà.
In 1932, Røst celebrated the 500 years since their Venetian encounter and their friendship with Querini. A monument stands as memento. Røst is one of the farthest out islands in the Lofoten going southwest. Its flat landscape lets wind blow unobstructed, the ideal conditions for cod to season perfectly. This also explains why stockfish comes from Norway, and from Norway only. Skrei cod is fished between February and April north of the Arctic circle. Then, the right mix of nature and human ingenuity turn this fish into stockfish of the highest quality.
Norwegian stockfish is an excellent ingredient for modern, original preparations. All it takes is to respect its naturally sapid flavour and pick simple pairings, even unusual, to make it even more inviting. Coming up in Venice is a three-day event produced by Arena Querini AS, the industry’s association of Røst stockfish suppliers. A cooking show by Francesca Romana Barberini will display the potential of this nutritious, healthy food, from traditional bacalà creamed with Norwegian seaweed, to fried stockfish with truffle and giardiniera, to stockfish sashimi, mayonnaise, preserved mushroom, pea sprouts, and kimchi… unique, refined flavour all around. Tom-Jørgen Gangsø, managing director for Italy of the Norwegian Seafood Council, commented how “even though Italy and Norway are so far apart in space, they are united in friendship thanks to our stockfish, a distinctive product that Italy turned into a valuable piece of exquisite gastronomy. We have been sharing this friendship since over 500 years, thanks to Pietro Querini.”
