As they say in Vicenza, in cod we trust

VICENZA, Italy - From the Middle Ages through the Renaissance, Italy produced renowned explorers, travelers and navigators who awoke the appetites of Europeans for trade and conquest.

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Marco Polo, from Venice, brought tales of the court of Kubla Khan, not to mention diamonds and rubies stuffed in the hems of his coat. Christopher Columbus, from Genoa, discovered a whole new world and later, Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine, mapped it and gave his name to two continents.

Then there was Piero Querini.

Perhaps the name escapes you. Unless you are a cod freak.

Querini, too, sailed beyond the Mediterranean Sea, traded in spices and looked for new lands. Evidently of the view that the world was flat, he never ventured far to the west and instead plied northern Atlantic coasts of Europe. In 1432, after he shipwrecked off the rough edges of Scandinavia, he was rescued by fair-skinned natives who lived in round houses with holes cut in the roofs for chimneys. He seemed to have made the most of his dilemma, as perhaps only an Italian could. Legend has it he fathered numerous children, his legacy a sprinkling of black-haired residents among the blond citizens of Norway's Lofoten islands.

Querini returned to Venice, his hometown, bearing booty of sorts: dried cod. He noted to anyone who would listen that the Vikings used it as money. The wealthy Venetians were unimpressed. They preferred hard currency. Why should they value this smelly, leathery item when the Venetian lagoon and the Adriatic Sea abounded with fresh fish? Where were the rubies and diamonds?

But residents of Vicenza, a river town on the mainland, saw things differently. They loved the taste and convenience of dried fish. So began a love affair that has persisted for 600 years - to the point that Vicenza, a city without a sea, became synonymous with cod.

Vicentini are somewhat sheepish about their identification with cod. Many Italian towns promote themselves through their works of art, or some cultural icon, or exploit the nearest Roman ruin. On that score, Vicenza boasts several villas designed by Andrea Palladio, palaces adorned with his distinctive arched windows and neoclassical columns. But they're not enough to lure hordes of tourists from Venice 50 miles east or from the Lake Garda district to the west, whose visitors rarely venture beyond Verona, home of both a big Roman amphitheater and the myth of Romeo and Juliet. Even nearby Padova and Mantova possess frescoes whose grandeur eclipse anything Vicenza can show.

Nor does Vicenza boast the spectacular defining historical drama to pin its fame on. While other towns in Venice's hinterland resisted conquest by Venice, Vicenza opted to make a deal: surrender in exchange for tax breaks.

So cod is the city's calling card, served always alongside polenta, a baked maize porridge. "We try to be known as the city of Palladio," said Michele Benetazzo, self-styled Grand Master of the Cod Brotherhood, a civic group dedicated to preserving traditional ways of preparing the fish. "But we like cod."

Cod is far from a rarity in Italy. It seems that every other city on the peninsula has its particular way to prepare it, yet another affirmation that there is no such thing as Italian food, just food for Italians. In Genoa, it's blended with onions, carrots, mushrooms and anchovies. In Livorno, they like it with tomato and basil. Naples likes it fried or cooked with tomatoes and potatoes. It's prepared simply with olive oil and parsley in Venice. Somehow dried cod is something Americans seem to rarely order (recent reports from theUnited States say that some restaurateurs are serving cod disguised as sole, all the salty taste blanched out to give it a bland taste Americans apparently prefer).

Cod is known as baccala in Italy but, in fact, for what Vicenza cooks up, it's a misnomer. Baccala (bah-kah-LAH) is cured in salt. The fish that Vicenza loves is hung from wooden frames and dried only by the wind and sun of springtime Norway. The proper name, therefore, is stockfish, stoccafisso in Italian. So why is the local dish called Baccala alla Vicentina instead of Stoccafisso all Vicentina? Another lightly embarrassed shrug. " 'Baccala' flows more easily off the tongue," said Carlo Peppe, secretary of the Brotherhood. "Sto-ka-feesso doesn't sound right."

Like many of Italy's most precious delicacies, cod was a poor person's food. It became especially popular for meatless Fridays in the Catholic tradition. Preparation alla vicentina takes around four hours - the dried cod, first soaked in water, is then covered with milk and cooked over a low flame.

In post-war Italy, homemade Baccala alla Vicentina became an endangered kitchen species. Women entered the outside workforce and fewer and fewer hands were available for the labor.

In the late 1980s, cod lovers became alarmed. An aspect of local identity was disappearing. A group of cod lovers took action. They formed the Confraternita di Baccala, the Cod Brotherhood, dedicated to preserving the dish. "Cod was the smell of the Vicenza home," said Arnaldo Pozzan, a proprietor of Due Spade restaurant, a cod specialty house. "We didn't want it to fade away. Restaurants became the last fortress of preservation." Pozzan is a fourth-generation cooker of cod.

The Cod Brotherhood took steps to ensure the authenticity of its favorite dish at local restaurants. Members inspect the fish used as the main ingredient and ensure that only the slow-cooking technique is used. Twenty-one Vicenza area restaurants have qualified for a special emblem denoting that Baccala alla Vicentina is served within.

The Brotherhood also organizes an annual, late September cod festival. The fair, in nearby Sandrigo, has grown steadily in popularity and last year chefs produced more than 14,000 portions for a mass public supper. The festival is kicked off with investiture of new members of the Brotherhood. Instead of a sword, the Grand Master ordains the new knights with a scepter in the shape of a cod. They wear grayish brown cloaks (to echo the color of cod) topped with a yellow mantle (for polenta).

Vicenza has also renewed its ties with the Lofoten islands - and buys about 90 percent of its dried cod production. Residents of the island of Rost, where Querini spent his shipwrecked days, have named an islet for Sandrigo. Sandrigo renamed a plaza for Rost. Vicentini insist that when Norwegians visit their city, they love Baccala alla Vicentina.

The finicky Italians don't necessarily return the compliment. "They boil their cod and serve it with potatoes. Querini should have spent less time charming the ladies and more teaching them how to cook," said Benetazzo.