Do you believe in cod?

Greedy and gormless, this is no sexy fish, but, on the plate, perfectly pearlescent cod is easily the equal of halibut or Dover sole, believes Tom Parker Bowles

- Tom Parker Bowles

IT was the fish that built countries, empires, and fortunes alike, a species once so abundant that you could cross Newfoundland's Conception Bay by tramping across their heads. Or so they said. Anyway, without cod, the US probably would not exist, as both colonists and pilgrims financed their early days across the pond by flogging the dried stuff back to the Old World.

Despite this decidedly epic legacy, the cod is hardly the most sexy of fish. Ok, so it's a little unfair to anthropomorphise a perfectly innocent piscine plodder. Cod does as cod is meant to do. But it certainly lacks the thrusting athleticism of the salmon or the mackerel's sleek, iridescent allure, instead of hanging about like a lumpen thug, well away from the swift currents, gob wide open, waiting for lunch to swim right in.

And they're not exactly fussy eaters. "Totally indiscriminate in their tastes,' wrote Francis Day in The Fishes of Great Britain and Ireland, 'consuming whatever inhabitants of the deep it is able to master.' Crustaceans, molluscs and worms, sand eels, and small fish, plus assorted jetsam, from polystyrene coffee cups to whole boots. Back in 1626, a 'book in three treatises' was found in a landed fish, a tome that was later presented to the vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge.