Salt cod and mashed potato bound into a patty, breaded and fried, served between saltine crackers with yellow mustard. A nickel-and-dime Baltimore corner-store snack rooted in thrift.
Coddies are old Baltimore — cheap snacks sold from corner stores, drugstore counters, and lunch counters that fed the working class, Black and immigrant alike, for pennies. They are a Depression-era thrift food that became a beloved Baltimore tradition.
Cod brings lean protein, B12, selenium, and iodine for thyroid and brain health, and the potato adds potassium. The cake is mostly potato and salt cod stretched far, so protein per cake is modest, and the salt cod plus frying make sodium and fried-oil the watch-points. Baked and made with fresh cod (or well-soaked salt cod), it becomes a much healthier potato-and-fish cake.
Soak salt cod overnight in several changes of water to remove most of the salt, then flake. Mix with mashed potato, egg, and seasoning, form into patties, bread, and fry until golden. Serve hot between two saltine crackers with a swipe of yellow mustard — the classic two-cracker presentation. Bake instead of fry, and soak the cod thoroughly, to lighten it.
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