"Cod" by Mark Kurlansky 3 Flashcards
sassafras
noun
a deciduous North American tree with aromatic leaves and bark. The leaves are infused to make tea or ground into filé.
“In 1602 Gosnold was still looking for the passage to Asia. In 1602, Gosnold sailed beyond Nova Scotia, following the coast south to New England in search of a passage to Asia, where he intended to gather sassafras, which was highly prized because it was thought to cure syphilis.”
filé
noun
pounded or powdered sassafras leaves used to flavor and thicken soup, esp. gumbo.
gumbo
(in Cajun cooking) a spicy chicken or seafood soup thickened typically with okra or rice.
Narragansett Bay
an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in southeastern Rhode Island.
“Giovanni da Verrazano sailed up the coast, found New York Harbor, Narragansett Bay, and an arm-shaped hook of land, which he named Pallavisino after an Italian general.”
Brunswick, Maine
a town in southwestern Maine, home to Bowdoin College;
cache
a collection of items of the same type stored in a hidden or inaccessible place.
“Their greatest gathering skill in the early years seems to have been an ability to find huge food caches hidden away by the native tribesmen.”
cheeky
rude and showing a lack of respect often in a way that seems playful or amusing
quahog
noun
a large, rounded edible clam of the Atlantic coast of North America.
“They showed the Pilgrims how to how to pry open the big hard-shelled quahogs and the smaller thin-shelled ones, their favorites, which today New Englanders call steamers.” (69)
Gloucester
n. a city in northeastern Massachusetts, on Cape Ann, noted as a fishing and resort center.
moratorium
n. a temporary prohibition of an activity:
Nova Scotia
a province in eastern Canada that consists of the Nova Scotia peninsula and adjoining Cape Breton Island; pop. 913,462 (2006); capital, Halifax. Settled as Acadia by the French in the early 18th century, it changed hands several times before being awarded to Britain in 1713. It became one of the original four provinces in the Dominion of Canada in 1867.
tread
the part of a step that is stepped on
“…included in the Salem mansion he was building a staircase decorated with a gilded wooden cod on the side of each tread.” (79)
tortoise
a turtle, typically a herbivorous one that lives on land.
“land-dweller that eats low-growing shrubs, grasses, and even cactus. Tortoises do not have webbed feet; their feet are round and stumpy for walking on land. Tortoises that live in hot, dry habitats use their strong forelimbs to dig burrows. Then, when it’s too hot in the sun, they slip underground.”
turtle
Spends most of its life in the water. Turtles tend to have webbed feet for swimming. Sea turtles (Cheloniidae family) are especially adapted for an aquatic life, with long feet that form flippers and a streamlined body shape. They rarely leave the ocean, except when the females come ashore to lay their eggs, although some species, such as the green sea turtle, do come out on reefs and beaches to bask.
schooner
n. a ship that has usually two masts with the larger mast located toward the center and the shorter mast toward the front
“The development of a faster fishing boat, the schooner, increased production capacity of this quick cure…..the name comes from an eighteenth-century New England word, scoon, meaning “to skim lightly along the water.” In full sail with a good breeze and a flat sea, heeling at a slight angle, the vessels did seem to scoon, and this remains one of the most elegant sights in the history of sailing.” (83)
