It wasn’t until I was well in to my 20s that I began eating fish. Stranger still, at that point I would only eat sushi. I couldn’t stand cooked fish because I associated it with the smell of ocean that tore through house any time mami would make frituras de bacalao (or any fish or seafood, for that matter). It never failed. You’d think being from Miami I was accustomed to that smell, but as a child it made me retch with revulsion and I was certain that anything that smelled that bad couldn’t possibly taste good.
Eventually, though, I did develop a taste for cooked fish when I was once left with no choice but to eat cooked fish or sit there and watch my friends enjoy dinner while I gnawed on breadsticks. I often think back to the plethora of times my mother made cod fritters and how I missed out. I can still hear her voice taunting and mocking me, “You don’t know what you’re missing!” and “Good! That means more for me!” I know now I missed out on more than just cod fritters, but at least I have her recipe.
If you can find salt-dried bacalao in your grocery, you’ll have to soak it for 24 hours, changing the water at least twice to wash away all the salt. If it is not readily available in your area, then simply use the codfish you can get from your local grocer’s fish department. My mother’s recipe calls for the salted cod; my version uses cod loin since I can’t find the salted cod in Indiana.