Newfie food: Hot chicken

I know English, or at least I think I do. One day back in the fall when I was still in Springdale, I passed by Mary Brown's (the Newfoundland Kentucky Fried Chicken) while running errands in town and decided to drop by to pick up some lunch. I had already tried Mary Brown's fried chicken and decided to try a different item on their menu. The fried chicken is quite delicious, but KFC has more seasoning in their batter. Anyway, I looked at their menu and decided I felt like a sandwich that afternoon. Since Mary Brown's specializes in chicken, everything on the menu is pretty "safe" and predictable. I decided that day would be a "Hot Chicken Sandwich" day. I ordered take out and brought it back to work on my bike. Little did I know, when I opened my Styrofoam box, I was faced with one messy sandwich. In my box was a sandwich consisting of shredded chicken between two slice white bread - a chicken sandwich. Except the title "Hot Chicken Sandwich" failed to mention that my sandwich would be drenched in gravy! They should have named it "Hot Chicken Sandwich in Sauce"! Apparently, when Newfies read "Hot Chicken Sandwich" or "Hot Turkey Sandwich", they know to expect a sandwich covered in gravy, because that is a fact of the culture. Sometimes we don't realize the amount of inexplicit practices or knowledge that are associated with different cultures and environment.  

Once again, the Newfie has something in common with the Quebecois. The Quebecois also eat sandwiches drenched in "la sauce brune" and covered in green peas. Guess what they call their sandwiches? A " 'ot chicken"!

Fauna: Fuzzy long-eared creatures

Going out for winter strolls in the forest is so much fun. Not only does the snow make everything look clean and bright, it adds a pretty trimming to the trees and makes it is easy to visibly detect the presence of the hidden forest dwellers. 

Bunny tracks.    

By the look of the track spacing, it looks like this guy was hopping about leisurely. Apparently when they are running, their hops can be spaced up to 3 m apart. No wonder they can run up to 45 km/h. When I run, my gait spacing is probably only between 50-100 cm.

Hey, bunny, bunny, look at me.  

Good boy! 

As you can see, this one has turned almost completely white for the winter to camouflage with the snow. I was surprised I was able to get so many good photos of this little guy, because being a city girl, I'm not exactly swift and quiet on the feet and was making quite a bit of noise, especially with my puffy snow pants which makes crinkling noises distinctive of the waterproof fabrics. It turns out, it had heard me after all. Freezing in place is one of their strategy when they senses danger. They take advantage of their camouflaging ability first, to access the situation, before running.

Fun facts about the snowshoe hare:
-Their toes can spread out to increase its surface area, so they won't sink in the snow.
-They live in the coniferous areas of the Boreal forest, and are found in all the provinces of Canada.
-They can have up to four litter per year, with a gestation period of only 36 days.

Hare, like moose and other game I will write about in later posts, is a much appreciated food source here. For a city girl,  seeking food always meant going to the grocery store, selecting what I wanted and handing over money. I wouldn't be any good at turning to my environment for food. The skills I have acquired at school are only valuable within four walls. Here in the rural, most families have a culture of passing on their food source seeking knowledge to their children, from skills on hunting, trapping, fishing, berry picking, to cultivating.

Game meat is an important food source for some people, especially those who are of lower income. These people may include those retired, but still healthy, active and capable, or people seasonally employed, or even just people who didn't have the opportunity to advance their education, and thus do not have the skills sought out by the modernized workforce. The irony is that, food source seeking skills are more valuable then my "employable skills" if a disaster were to ever happen. Another reason that catching your own game may be more viable for someone with lower income is that meat at the store is expensive. The price factors in all the labour added to process the meat before it reaches the store display. Processes like bloodletting, skinning, butchering, packaging, shipping, storage and refrigeration until sale all add to the cost of the meat. In addition to paying the cost of processing, food seems to be more expensive in places that are further away  from urban centres. The higher cost is most likely due to shipping, and also with a smaller population, there is a smaller profit margin and businesses need to adjust the prices in order to make it worthwhile to continue offering their service to the community.

Some of my colleagues hunt hares with a bow and arrow! I can't believe that there are still people that hunt with bow and arrow, since riffles are pretty easy to access now that it is mass manufactured. The bow and arrow is probably more for sport. The advantage of hunting by bow and arrow in Newfoundland is that the licence to hunt hare is two weeks longer than the license hunting with gun. The season for hare game is from September to early February. In addition to shooting, people also set up snares.

My colleagues were saying, they need to take me out on the snowmobile and introduce me to Newfie boil up, which involves matches, wood, water, a tin can and a snare. Now I could imagine the use for a tin can and all the other items, but a snare? I had read about snares in The Hunger Games, but I had never seen one or understood how it worked. It turns out a snare is simply a piece of wire, and it would be used as a handle to the tin can. The snare is twisted into a loop where one end is free to slide along the wire. As an animal runs through the snare, they will tug at the loop, making it smaller and smaller as they try to run away.

Here are two examples of rabbit snares.

 Source: schoolofhowto.com "Rabbit Snare"

Source: schoolofhowto.com "Rabbit Snare"

Snowshoe hares are apparently pretty easy to trap. They always travel through the same network of  trail ways, which become really obvious in the winter as they leave behind their tracks in the snow. You would think they would adapt to hide their trails network, but in fact they work hard at keeping the trail maintained.  They keep the trail clear of obstruction in case they needed to escape from predators.

Hunters tie bright coloured ribbons above the snare so that they will remember the location when they come back to check their trap. They need to check their snares everyday to make sure that other animals do not get to it first.

Now why hasn't this bunny changed colours?!

Just last week-end, I bumped into another bunny. Except, this one confused the city girl in me a lot, because from my first photo shoot with the snowshoe hare, I knew that their fur should have all changed to white by now. When I went back to work, I told my colleagues that I saw a brown bunny. They didn't believe me, since they should be white by now. So I showed them my photo as proof. They all looked at it and said it must have been a house pet that escaped, because there is no way that is the wild ones. Later when I was telling the same story to some of my curling friends, it turns out, that bunny is in fact a tamed rabbit, and had escaped two months prior as one of the family was moving away. Since then, my friend Lorna has found it wandering her house, and she has taken to leaving out food for it whenever she can, because the poor thing chose the harshest month to escape into the wild. Lorna hopes that eventually it'll learn how to find its own food. Other are less optimistic. They are sure some other animal will find it before spring.

Fun facts comparing tamed rabbits and the wild hare:

-Hares are born with all their fur and their eyes open, while rabbits are born fur-less and blinded. 

-Baby hares are capable of hopping about right at their birth.  

Poor bunny, he is doomed, since its specie was not meant to survive in the wild. :( At least it would have tasted liberty.

Fauna: Beaver den and unidentifiable animal?

I spy with my little eye...something that is brown.

A beaver den!
Look how it is frozen in place. 
Then again, dams are usually "in place"
At Woolfrey's Pond behind my house.

What's that hiding behind the trees?

Cap-Saint-Georges & Grande-Terre

Snow day! Temps pour rattraper avec les aventures à Terre-Neuve.

Reculons à mi-octobre.  Je suis allée voir Annie et Momo à Stephenville à l’ouest de l’Île, et nous deux avons décidé de faire un aventure pour visiter la fameuse côte française. Nous sommes allées au Cap-Saint-Georges (Cape St-George en anglais)…  en faisant du pouce :p. Pour connaître le peuple, il faut le côtoyer. 

Annie (avec Momo sur le dos) et notre pancarte pour aller au Cap.

Au contraire de scepticisme des gens de la région envers l’acte de faire du pouce,  Annie et moi étions embarquées après juste 10 minutes au bord de la ville. Deux filles et un toutou d’orignal –nous ne pouvons pas faire mal au monde. La première dame qui nous a embarqué est  danoise, mais ça fait une vingtaine d’année qu’elle s’installée à la Grade-Terre (Mainland en anglais), Terre-Neuve.  La Grande-Terre est  une des quelques communautés francophones qui reste à Terre-Neuve, et par hasard, Mme Greta a embarqué deux monitrices de français.  Les prochaines  50km jusqu’au cap s’est passé vite.

La vue de notre gîte au Cap Saint-Georges (pointe B sur la carte en bas).

Ici, toutes les pancartes sont en français et anglais.
Je me couche pour ne pas s'envoler dans le vent.

Il ventait beaucoup cette fin de semaine avec du vent de jusqu’au 50km/ h.
C’est bien fort quand on est piéton!

J’adorais les sapins! Je pense qu’ils sont des épinettes, spruce en anglais.

Au sommet, il n’y avait plus d’arbre; la montagne est toute chauve. 

Une astuce pour avoir du succès en faisant du pouce : portez une mitaine avec un pouce fluo rose! Cependant, il faut mieux choisir des routes stratégiquement pour faire du pouce, car pour faire le tour de Cap Saint-Georges jusqu’à la Grande-Terre,  nous avons croisé que cinq voitures pendant l’heure, alors c’était un peu du temps avant que nous soyons embarquées.  

View Larger Map
Nous avons fait en total 135km en pouce.

Prochaine arrête, la Grande-Terre! (Pointe C sur la carte). La Grande-Terre se trouve à la côte ouest laquelle est aussi connue comme la côte française. Elle s’est établie illégalement par des pêcheurs français qui n’ont pas voulu rentrer en France.  À ce temps là, aucun pays, ni l’Angleterre, ni la France avaient la droite de coloniser la Terre-Neuve.  La Terre-Neuve était juste un territoire pour faire l’exploitation de la pêche.  Alors, les pêcheurs français qui se sont restés sont des rebelles, ou des gens qui aiment travailler fort?

À la Grande-Terre, on s’est croisé Greta encore! La Grade-Terre a qu’environ 350 habitants et le village est qu’une rue étroite,  alors c’est assez facile de repérer deux filles à pied, donc une chinoise, surtout quand j’avais des mitaines fluo.  Cette fois Greta  nous a invitées dans sa maison pour faire la connaissance de ses filles, lesquelles toutes vont à l’école française à la Grande-Terre. On s’est fait la connaissance de nos premiers franco-terre-neuviens!  

 L’Île rouge où les pêcheurs français se sont allés pour leur prise.

Il ventait beaucoup à la Grande-Terre. Il n’a pas d’arbre dans l’environnement (peut-être il vente trop?), alors le village n’est pas à l’abri du vent. Il ventait tellement à la Grande-Terre que le vent sifflait dans la vallée. 

Regardez, pas de l'arbre!  

Pour rentrer à Stephenville, nous avons vite trouvé deux messieurs âgés pour nous embarquer. Ces messieurs se promenaient en char pour passer l’après midi, car un ne peut plus trop bien marcher, alors il peut que faire des balades en voiture.  C’était rigolo avec ces messieurs, cars ils parlaient avec un gros accent terre-neuvien et, ce qui les rendait encore plus difficile à comprendre, c’était qu’ils n’ont plus leurs dents, et alors parlent drôlement.  Ô, les gens qu’on rencontrait pendant notre aventure!

新年快乐！Sharing my Chinese culture

新年快乐！(Happy New Year!) Today is the Lunar New Year; the year of the snake (蛇) according to the Chinese horoscope.

Part of this year living out here in Newfoundland is learning about this province's people and culture, but at the same time, it is also about sharing my culture with them. Even though almost all the towns I've been to across Canada have at least one Chinese restaurant (towns of at least 3,000 inhabitants), the Canadians who do not live in the urban centres of Canada in fact know very little about the Chinese culture, or food for that matter! (Chicken balls are not Chinese, but Chinese-Canadian, and even so, the only thing Chinese about them is that it is made and served by Chinese at restaurants. )

Over the next week, I will invite my students to join me in my festivities. They will learn about the New Year legend, song, dances, tradition, greetings, and even try some New Year sweets! Here is a collection of video clips I have compiled for my students about Chinese New Year. For an English summary of the video, please refer to the description below.

Summary of Chinese New Year celebrations
Date:
This year the Lunar New Year falls on February 10th, 2013. This date changes every year, because the Chinese follow the lunar calendar. It wasn't until around 1929 that China finally started using the Gregorian calendar, and even then, the Gregorian calendar was more for business purposes, and the festivals continued to use the lunar calendar.

Horoscope year:
2013 is the year of the snake (蛇). Snakes have a calm characteristic, so this year will be a quite year of introspection, reflection and getting in touch with the inner you.

New Year legend:
Why do Chinese celebrate the new year with red, lion dance and firecrackers? The legend goes that there once was a monster called "Nian" (年) who terrorized the villagers, because that's what monsters do best. The people thought hard and long on how to ward off the horrible 年. Finally someone noticed that 年 was afraid of things that were more ferocious than him, namely, the colour red, fire and loud noises. Hence, at the beginning of each year, the Chinese decorate their homes with red, light paper lanterns, and hold a lion dance with the sounds of cymbals clashing, and drums beating. A final chain of red firecrackers is lite to banish the 年 away until the next year.

New Year song:
In English-speaking countries, people start the new year singing "Auld Lang Syne" which is a Scotish poem talking of the good times. The Chinese also have a new year song, titled Gong Xi Gong Xi (恭喜恭喜) which translates to congratulations.

Gifts:
Instead of giving gifts, Chinese usually give gifts of money in red good luck envelops. Also, it is those who are established and married that give money, and those who are unmarried receive the envelops. ;)