In 1497, the Italian navigator John Cabot, sailing under the English flag, reported that the waters off Newfoundland were 'swarming with fish' that could be caught with baskets weighted with stones. This discovery sparked the European cod fishery that would sustain the continent for centuries. Cabot's reports, made after his landing in what is now Canada, led to an influx of English, French, and Portuguese fishing vessels to the Grand Banks. The immense cod stocks would become a primary driver of European expansion and a source of immense wealth.

Cabot's discovery became a staple of English maritime poetry and ballads, celebrating the abundance of the New World's fisheries. The 'basket of cod' imagery appears in later poems and travel narratives that evoke the promise of the Americas. The cod fishery also inspired the development of a Newfoundland literary tradition, with poets and ballad-makers chronicling the lives of the fishermen.