I've read that navies and explorers survived off the flesh of sea turtles and seals. Towns and economies developed over whales and whaling.
But, according to Mark Kurlansky, the "cod" fisheries (there are more than one species) were influential in maintaining the Caribbean slave trade, were a major basis of commerce and livelihood for hundreds of thousands in the western European countries, as well as Iceland, Canada, and the United States, and fed the world with a cheap and easily transported and stored protein - salted cod.
Kurlansky explores this topic in Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World.
In many regions, cod went from an "inexhaustible" resource to one missing from the landscape. For example,
"Canadian cod was not yet biologically extinct, but it was commercially extinct - so rare that it could no longer be considered commercially viable. Just three years short of the 500-year anniversary of the reports of Cabot's men scooping up cod in baskets, it was over. Fishermen had caught them all" (p. 186).
Kurlansky tells this tale from the beginning, starting with the discovery of huge schools of large fish, and the development and refinement of an industry to exploit this resource. You'll get a visual taste of this exploitation in The End of the Line.
My edition (Penguin Books) apparently won a "James Beard Award." I assume this is because of the cod recipes scattered throughout the text, all from a 500 year stretch.
Visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium's site for information on their Seafood Watch program. Only purchase seafood from sustainable sources!Get more detail about Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World.
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