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A Little About NFLD Cooking

About Newfoundland cooking:-

Newfoundland women are terrific cooks and one of the reasons is that they do not eat out as often as mainlanders do (Maybe they do in the cities but not in the outports). If they want a really special meal they cook it themselves. Today their food habits follow much the same lines as does the United States and the rest of Canada. But because of the history, geographical location, soil and climate there are certain customs and dishes that distinctly belong to Newfoundlanders.
Most of the fruits, vegetables and meats are imported so it is easier to obtain in the cities and larger centers rather than in the outports. Therefore traditional foods are to found on the outport tables, instead of in the city.
Newfoundlanders use more potatoes, turnips, cabbage and carrots than other vegetables because they grow well there. Salted meat such as salt beef, salt pork and salted ribs are used because of tradition and difficulties of keeping fresh meat.
Desserts run more to puddings than to fruits because fruits other than berries aren't grown there.
Green salads aren't as popular as more complicated mixtures. A uniquely Newfoundland dish is seal Flipper Pie (I can't eat it), because it isn't served anywhere else in North America. (At least it wasn't).
Most of the traditional dishes share a common origin with the recipes from the rest of the Atlantic seaboard but Flipper Pie is distinctly Newfoundland's own.
In a well run outport home, Tuesday, Thursday are considered "Pot days". This means salt beef, pork or ribs were cooked in a large pot with turnips, carrots, potatoes and sometimes cabbage. Served hot. Sometime a peas pudding was cooked in a pudding bag in with the meat and veggies if so cabbage wasn't cooked.
Sunday was roast day, either pork, beef, chicken, or any meat that could be roasted, served with potatoes, carrots and turnip, gravy and a pudding baked with the roast for the last hour.
Monday was wash day, so usually the leftovers from Sunday's roast were turned into a hash with the leftover vegetables. (using fried salt pork and chopped onions as the base).
Wednesday and Friday was fish day either fresh or salted, served with boiled potatoes. About the only vegetable that went good with fish was peas, and since peas were usually canned after they were heated they were mushy (hence they were called mushy peas). (I hate mushy peas, would rather eat them cold out of the can if I have to have them or raw out of the garden).
Saturday was pea soup or baked bean day. There is always dessert, even if it is something made up quick . My mother baked all her pies, cakes and cookies every Saturday. Then during the week we would make a bread pudding, or rice pudding. Of course we could make a boiled pudding called "duff" on top of the boiled dinner. When raisins were put in it we called it "figgy duff".

Newfoundland Fare:-

Everywhere a Newfoundlander goes his food is sure to follow. A Newfoundlander is unique; what goes into his mouth and the sayings that come out of it stamp him forever, no matter where he travels. He goes "down North", measures in "yaffuls" (as much cod as a man can carry in his arms) and swears "be the Lard liftin' " (which started out as "by the lifting Lord") if he hurts himself or something goes wrong.
When he sits down to supper, his plate could possibly be filled with Jiggs' dinner or salt fish, potatoes & scrunchions; with a duff or dunch for dessert. Mainlanders might think of the cod as a fish to poach or fry or have with chips, but a Newfoundlander knows that a cod -fresh or salted- is a collection of delicacies; cod cheeks (make the best fish stew or chowder), cod tongues (delicious),cod sounds, cod liver oil is made from the livers. Then there are 'leggies', which are young cod also called rounders.
A Newfoundlander really knows herring, soused herring baked in vinegar and water (the vinegar dissolves most of the herring's 365 bones - one for each day of the year, boiled salt herring and potatoes, smoked herring for breakfast (at least according to how my grandfather ate them).
Newfoundlanders are also connoiseurs of lobsters, mussels, clams, turbot (pronounced 'tur but' not 'tur bo' as so many of the chefs on the Food Network do), mackerel, squid, salt water snails (picked off the rocks from among the kelp, at low tide) - and all the life that comes from the surrounding sea.
But the sea is not the only thing that influenced Newfoundlanders' food tastes; the lack of refrigeration did also. Long before ice boxes and refrigerators, they salted most of their meats and fish to keep them from spoiling. Sometimes they sealed them in sterilized jars, my mother bottled salmon, moose meat, venison and other things every fall as well as fruits and berries to make pies in the wintertime.
No matter where a Newfoundlander travels he carries his native food with him or the recipes for cooking his native meals.
Newfoundlanders like to drink tea, but it usually is strong enough to etch copper and then, most of them sweeten it with a lot of sugar or molasses. My grandfather put molasses on his porridge (oatmeal). I loved a slice of bread with butter and molasses as an after school treat. We did not have Maple syrup, therefore we ate our pancakes with molasses. Sometimes even now, I eat them that way instead of with Maple syrup
There is "Fish and Brewis" made from hardtack soaked and boiled with salt cod, usually eaten at breakfast time.
Newfoundland Blood pudding is like no other in the world it is much mealier has lots of onions and spices.
Ginger wine is a great tonic and remedy for upset stomachs.
Newfoundland candy consists of such delights as peanut butter kisses and peppermint nobs, like other island food the nobs are strong enough to completely clear the sinuses of non-Newfoundlanders.
There are jars of bakeapple (not baked apples) but a very delicate amber coloured berry that resembles a raspberry. They must be picked as soon as they are ripe, as a thunder storm can cause the whole crop to fall off the plants on the ground; where they spoil very fast.
Then there are partridgeberries, called lingonberries in Norway and Sweden - as far as I know they only grow in those countries as well as Newfoundland. I have tried growing them in my backyard, here in Northern Ontario. They did not do well at all.
Then Newfoundland has the Dogberry. When I mention Dogberries to a Mainlander they look at me funny, then I explain they know them as Mountain Ash. At that time they tell me those berries are poisonous. I explain if the berries were poisonous I would not have survived past a year of age. My mother made jelly from them every fall. She always waited until after the first touch of frost, as she said this took some of the bitterness off the berry. Then cooked with crabapples or cooking apples and sugar they made a delicious jelly.
I also found some dogberry Wine recipes that were good, but a few years ago I invented my own. I don't imbibe but like to use wine in my cooking, friends that I have given the wine to always come back the next year asking for more.