{moszoomthumb imgid=741 itemid=74 style_m=2}Remember when people thought Tom Cruise was cool? When he slid across the floor in his tightie-whities early in his career, the public fell in love. The scene, featuring a 21-year-old Cruise lip-syncing “Old Time Rock and Roll” in 1983’s “Risky Business,” has achieved movie icon status, right there with Marylyn Monroe’s billowing dress and a tearful Donna Reed in Jimmie Stewart’s arms. 

But even with the string of hits that followed, including “Top Gun,” “A Few Good Men,” “Born on Fourth of July,” “Jerry Macguire” and the “Mission Impossible” series, Cruise’s popularity has gone belly up. Today, if you mention his name in polite company, people roll their eyes and dismiss the Hollywood star as a flipped-out cult member who is not even worth following in the tabloids.

It turns out that there is a counterpart to Cruise in the natural world, and it coincidentally shares the name Tom. The Atlantic tomcod is a poor little fish with a grand past that has relatively recently lost favor in the public eye.  

Right now, if you walked along the smelt fishing shacks on tidal rivers in New Hampshire and Maine, you would see tomcods up to 12 inches long tossed onto the ice for savaging gulls to tear apart. Cursed as bait stealers and trash bottom-feeding fish, these small cousins of the more famous Atlantic cod are considered by most not worth the trouble to clean. In fact, angler survey data suggests that one in 40 anglers do not think tomcod are even edible. But the truth, if you can handle the truth, is that they were once held in the highest epicureal regard.
 
About a century ago, tomcod were considered a delicacy and were marketed as “London trout” in New England fish markets. Records from the mid 1800s indicate that about 10,000 pounds of the fish were caught annually from the Charles River in Boston to feed a discerning piscivorous public. One popular dish made from the fish was called tomcod bouillotte. The hearty stew-like concoction was a layered mixture of sliced potatoes, tomcod fillets and onions, topped with pieces of salted pork. Add water and simmer for three hours and you’ve got a tasty meal. 

The fall of the tomcod’s popularity is due to a combination of factors. Over-fishing contributed to its disappearance from fish markets. The fish were an easy catch in nets along small tidal rivers and they were soon fished below marketable numbers (ironic, considering the original name for tomcod is thought to have come from a Native American word tacaud, literally meaning “plenty fish”). Also, as the human population increased in New England and the Industrial Revolution kicked into high gear, dams limited tomcod spawning habitats and increased pollution degraded their critical environments. But perhaps the biggest reason that tomcods have such lousy public appeal is that they had an incompetent public relations manager.

Tom Cruise learned early on that name recognition is the key to success. His given name is Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, but he quickly realized that Mapother is not star material. His public relations manager was careful to keep him in the spotlight and in quality movies. Tomcod PR managers, however, clearly dropped the ball. Once London trout disappeared from menus, diners simply forgot about the little fish. The number one PR rule was broken when many colloquial names sprang up among North Atlantic communities. Depending on where you are from, a tomcod may be referred to as a tommy, Christmas fish, winter cod, snig, frost fish or poisson des chenaux. So, to the gourmet fish consumer who relished London trout, the fish seemed to simply vanish. Over-exploitation, poisonous environmental conditions and absence from the critically acclaimed spotlight are also spelling professional doom for Tom Cruise. Cruise’s over-exposed appearances in tabloids and on talk shows (the bouncy performance on “Oprah” lives in infamy) have made him increasingly unappealing.

The venomous stigma of Scientology is also ruining the actor’s reputation. In January, a Church of Scientology video showed up on YouTube, demostrating to the world what a wild-eyed freak Cruise had become. During his speech/interview, Cruise manically preached that Scientologists were “the authorities on getting people off drugs. We are the authorities on the mind. We are the authorities on improving conditions … We can rehabilitate criminals. We can bring peace and unite cultures.”

It seems that Cruise believes that the Church of Scientology can make him as popular as he used to be with the public. In New Hampshire, some folks have also tried to reinvigorated public interest in tomcod. In 2003, the Aquaculture Education Research Center, based in Hampton/Seabrook, tried to develop an aquaculture business around tomcod, hoping that the glory of the past would fuel high market prices. Unfortunately, their efforts did not end in fruitful results. For now, London trout is still absent from menus and tomcod are abused on the ice.

Tom Cruise and tomcod do have their work cut out for them, but one thing they both have in common that may help them win back the public’s respect is there tenacious eagerness. Tom still has a long list of films in the works, including “Valkyrie,” a World War II movie about a plot to assassinate Hitler, as well as a rumored remake called “Hardy Boys,” with Ben Stiller.
Tomcod are also eagerly at work under the ice, biting even when smelt have forsaken the cold angler. Perhaps armed with targeted techniques and a new appreciation for their quality as food, fishermen may again dream of taking piles of tomcod home for dinner.