Sometime soon we will publish an article describing the deep historical roots of fish liver oil and what we do, but meanwhile I wanted to put out a short teaser based on a couple of calls I received in the past week. There was an assertion made that fish liver oils used medicinally were first invented or discussed in Norway and only as recently as the 1700’s. That is not what my research reveals.

Over the years we have provided content that covers both historical and present day fermentation of fish and fish products. We have received permission to publish some excerpts from one of our reference books: Fish Processing Sustainability and New Opportunities (Edited by George M. Hall) through the publisher Wiley-Blackwell.

Previously, to ensure high quality fish products, it was imperative that the mills were close to the water. The fish used were the fish which were available close to the mills. As Möller explains on page XLIV: “Or even as to the kind of fish from which they are taken. At Lofoten and Romasdalen the use of livers other than those of cod is out of the question, because no other fish are caught there. … In Finmarken the matter is entirely different. The making of cod liver oil goes on all the year round, but except during the unimportant spawning fishery the livers of cod fish are by no means the only raw material available for the caldron. Great quantities of haddock, coal fish, hake, torsk, ling, halibut, and wolf fish are caught, and last but not least, there is the porbeagle and the Greenland shark.