![[Gadus_morhua_Cod-2b-Atlanterhavsparken-Norway.jpg]] Textbooks tend to stress the European hunger for gold and silver, and finding precious metals was very important to explorers like the conquistadors. But we shouldn’t underestimate actual hunger: Europeans’ fear of famine, especially during the Little Ice Age. Even before Columbus’s voyage, Basque and Portuguese fishermen were regularly visiting the Grand Banks off the coast of Newfoundland to catch cod, originally discovered and fished by the Vikings. A 1497 account by Giovanni Caboto (another Italian explorer who anglicized his name to John Cabot) claimed cod were so plentiful on the coast of North America that European fishermen could almost walk from ship to ship on their backs. [Salted cod](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacalhau) is still an important element of traditional Portuguese cuisine, although nowadays they get their fish from Norway. The fisheries were originally a closely-guarded trade secret, but by the time Columbus made his famous journey they were well-known. And since cod was usually salted and dried on racks onshore before being carried back to Europe, Columbus and his crew were almost certainly not the first Europeans to make landfall in the Americas after the Viking settlements had been abandoned. ----- Next: [[4.10 - Spain]] Back: [[4.8 - Vikings]]