Stockfish is an imported meal all the way from Norway and a staple in many Asian and African countries, including Nigeria.
Stockfish is made from fishes such as Cod, Pollock, Tusk, Haddock and a few other varieties dried in the open air without salting.
Before Norway discovered oil and natural gas, its wealth was built on fisheries. Today fish exports are Norway's second highest earner.
Producing a perfect and nutritious stockfish is an art that involves first-class craftsmanship and expertise, as well as the very forces of nature itself. Interestingly, Norway has the right weather for its production and has been in the business for hundred of years.
The history of Stockfish in Nigeria started as far back as the 1890s. However it became popular during the civil war.
According to studies, stockfish was often used during the slave trade across the Atlanta Ocean because it has a longer storage life span than many foods, and can stay for several years after preservation.
In Nigeria, it was the civil war that set the scene for stockfish to become a must-have ingredient in Nigerian cuisine. In the course of three years of the civil war, more than a million people d!ed mostly from hunger. It was a humanitarian crisis on an unprecedented scale, and relief agencies from all over the world joined forces to fly in emergency supplies.
Norway's contribution was stockfish.
The nutritional benefits of stockfish are many and include protein, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin B, iron and calcium.
At the moment, stockfish is largely imported into Nigeria as 'animal feed' because the Nigerian government banned it due to the necessity to expand the country's own fish sector. But despite the ban and foreign exchange restrictions, around 10,000 metric tons of stockfish are imported into country yearly under the guide that it is an 'animal Feed"
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