Fishing in the Mediterranean

[Marshal Murat]

I was recently reading a book on Mediterranean history (specifically 17th century) and it mentioned the fact that the Mediterranean had no fishing history. I thought this was absurd, since the Mediterranean was a sea, and therefore had fish. The author stated that since the Sea lacked a shelf that transitioned from land to deep sea, there was a dearth of fishing spots along most of the Mediterranean coast. I thought that was crazy, until I actually looked at a sea map of the Mediterranean.

Is this correct, there aren't that many fishing spots along the Mediterranean coast?

[YellowMelon]

You tend to hear more about Portuguese, Basque, English fishermen in the Atlantic, though I may be biased regarding the areas I studied. Though when you look at French, Italian cuisine, fish plays an important role. Its interesting question you raise...I shall look into this :)

[Watchman]

So far as I know. Gave a wee bit of problem for anyone trying to put together a navy too - skilled sailors and suchlike weren't readily available, as they were by more "fishy" seas. You could usually find enough of course - if you were able and willing to offer premium enough wages you could attract them from other peoples' ships and merchant marines...

I understand there's a couple of spots that for one reason or another hosted abundant sealife, and duly these gave a livelihood to appropriately sized populaces of fishermen, but compared to say the Atlantic the place's kind of barren.

Not sure about the Black Sea. It gets the effluent from all those big-ass rivers, so it might offer more in the way for assorted critters to make a home and find food in.

Though when you look at French, Italian cuisine, fish plays an important role.

Then again, the famous bits come from the haute cuisine of the wealthy. It's not like those folks had any particular trouble flat out importing fish to their kitchens - we're talking about the same bunch who could afford to buy spices from Asia at those daylight-robbery prices the things commanded after all...

[Vladimir]

17th century, AD or BC? Salt and tuna from the Med are two of the reasons the Phoenicians got rich.

[Watchman]

I thought it was the purple, and a really nifty middle-man position between other regions of concentrated habitation ? And aren't tuna ocean, ie. open-sea, fish and thus little concerned with continental shelves in the first place ?

[Vladimir]

I thought it was the purple, and a really nifty middle-man position between other regions of concentrated habitation ? And aren't tuna ocean, ie. open-sea, fish and thus little concerned with continental shelves in the first place ?

My history according to the Science channel states that they took advantage of breeding tuna migrating in the Med or somesuch. There are many kinds of tuna and I don't remember which they were. Profits from the fish, salt, and (you guessed it) salted fish built the foundation of their prosperity.

[YellowMelon]

While sifting through internet resources I found a book called The Corrupting Sea which (through the limited preview) seemed to indicate that the nutritional value of fish versus wheat was not significant enough to develop a large scale fishing industry in the Mediterranean. Even today the fish consumption of people on the Italian peninsula is relatively low (admittedly wrong in my earlier assessment). Because of the nutritional inefficiency it was more of a cash crop than anything. Despite this, there was some form of fishing infrastructure in shallower regions.

Unfortunately the big section on fishing was excluded from the preview...figures eh :) Only about 2 pages of useful information remained.

[Watchman]

More of a rare-ish luxury-ish consumable than a dietary staple, in other words. Conversely you'd have been hard pressed indeed to find a coastal community without a substantial number of more-or-less full-time fishermen on the ocean shores or around, say, the Baltic - heck, for what it's worth they found a Stone Age fishing net preserved in the bottom mud from the period immediately after the ice left here...