Everything smells like cod-fish

Christmas Eve and Good Friday are two days in a year when everything in Croatia smells at the cod-fish.
At first, it was just Christmas Eve, but now we eat cod more than once a year. Probably because we all love to eat that fish, so we don't want to wait a whole year to eat it again.
I know that's the case in my family.
Dried Norwegian fish is mostly exported to Italy but also Croatia.
There is no cod in the Adriatic sea, so how did this dry and salty Norwegian fish found the way to the Croatian plate?

It turns out that it was an accidental 'discovery'. In 15 century, noble form Venice Republic, after his boat sink, was miraculously rescued and he found his salvation on the Norwegian coast. He lived there for months, and with the local people, prepared the sea and salted fish in different ways. After he finally built another boat, with himself he brought a lot of dried and salted cod. When he returned to Venice he almost ended in quarantine. Because of the intense smell, everybody thought that he brought with himself a people that were dying of the plague.

After a while they allowed him to prepare this strange and smelly fish. He used all his 'Viking' knowledge that has collected during his time in Norway and after that export of cod started in Italy. As it usually is, the story spread in Croatia, closely connected to the Venice Republic. To be precise, most of our territory was a part of the Venice Republic at that time.

Till this day in our country tradition of eating cod is connected to the fast and abstain from eating meat.

My father is a seaman and we all like the most (if he is at home) when he prepares the cod for us in his special way.
First of all, it is important to leave dry cod at least two days in a water.

After that, you cook a cod so that you could remove the bones and other parts of the fish which you are not going to use.
In a dish, on olive oil stew a lot of onion, add garlic, tomato paste and pour a lot of white wine!

Roundly slice potato and fish pieces put together and cook until potato softness.

We use a lot of Mediterranean spices like thyme, bay leaves, rosemary, basil...
At the end slightly chopped parsley and olive oil put on the top.
The smelly fish dish is ready to taste!

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The other day I was talking about olive oil, but cod liver oil has enormous influence on our health as well.

Usually, we give it to our children as a great source of vitamin D, significant for bone structure and as a protection from a long winter without sun. I know as a kid we used to hate this smelly fish oil but our parents made us take it. Today there are capsules and syrups which don't leave that terrible taste in your mouths. This omega 3-fatty acid is important for adults too, they can lower high cholesterol and blood pressure, prevent some autoimmune diseases, eye disorders and prevent fractures or osteoporosis.

So, enjoy the smell and taste the cod!

*Thanks sis @jele.mala for great photos!