ABSTRACT
The stockfish is a dish especially associated with the Rouergue and eastern Quercy regions of France, and local historians believe that its appearance and development in the region was associated with the international network of the wool trade in the later middle ages, when the towns of Villefranche de Rouergue and Figeac were important commercial centres. It is thought that this variety of dried cod was brought from Norway by merchants who came to buy wool. It is seldom mentioned in French cookery books on account of its very local character, but it is none the less known in other parts of Languedoc and in Provence, though it does not seem to enjoy there the esteem it has in Figeac (from which my recipe comes), where it is regarded as a supreme delicacy.
