Stoccafísso (Italian) Baccalà (Italian)

Stoccafísso is a rigid stick-like object, gutted and dried on the pebbled shores of Norwegian fiords by the north wind, and in Iceland and Newfoundland. In the Veneto you see these fish in winter, sometimes a metre long, in wooden tubs looking like gnarled bâtons in an umbrella stand. Hard, dried, desiccated by exposure, yellow as stained parchment, it needs to be beaten, unsoaked, with a hammer to shreds before soaking for, say, twelve hours, changing the water often; or, alternatively, it must be soaked for several days. Often one or other procedure has been performed by the grocer. The first method facilitates its incorporation with olive oil in a dish called Baccalà mantecato (mantecare = to whip) which is the Venetian version of the French brandade. (Misunderstandings arise because the word baccalà is indiscriminately used to describe both stockfish and salt cod in Italy, just as the word morue is often used for both in France.) The fact is that stockfish is particularly suited to both these preparations, French and Italian, rather than salt cod which is fibrous by nature – though either can be used. See Elizabeth David’s Italian Food for the Venetian version.