“Typical of Iberia, both the Basques and the Catalans claim the word comes from their own languages, and the rest of Spain disagrees. Catalans have a myth that cod was the proud king of fish and was always speaking boastfully, which was an offence to God. "Va callar!" (Will you be quiet!), God told the cod in Catalan. Whatever the word's origin, in Spain lo que corta el bacalao, the person who cuts the salt cod, is a colloquialism for the person in charge.” Food AnthropologyFood HistoryCodCatalanBasqueSalt CodBacalao Book:Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World Source: Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World