Newfie food: Cod tongue

Pieces of deep fried cod tongue at By the Sea Café.

Once again, cod finds it's way onto my plate. I know, I know, all of this cod eating is contributing to the cod problem here in Newfoundland, but since this is my year for learning all about the Newfoundland ways, I figured I am allowed to eat it once in a while, especially since cod is practically on all the Newfoundland menus.

I consider myself fairly adventurous when it comes to trying different foods, so the tongue part did not faze me at all. I quite enjoyed to smooth slippery texture. Smooth sounds appetizing, but the same cannot be said for the word slippery. I must admit, I would not do the tongues justice if I did not also describe it as slippery which sounds anything but appealing, especially when it is used to refer to an animal part. I guess the word slippery wouldn't influence your impression of the appeal of a food if I was using that adjective to describe let's say, something like noodles, but when used to describe tongue, I would fail for sure if I were in marketing and possibly even make stomachs churn. Since most of the animal tongues that I have encountered from petting and feeding sessions feel like sandpaper, I would say, the smooth and softness of a cod's tongue should be considered quite an accomplishment.

 

Newfie food: Fish cake

Homemade fish cake made from
the famous Newfoundland blue potatoes.

Fish cake is a pan fried patty made by combining left over potatoes and salted fish with egg, and is usually eaten for supper the day after fish and brewis is served. This particular fish cake is made with the famous Newfoundland blue potatoes. These potatoes have a skin with traces of purple-blue tint, and is famous for having a stronger flavour, than the usual bland flavour typical to potatoes.

Newfie food: Fish and brewis

Clockwise from top: salted cod, brewis, potato, and scrunchions.

So back in the days, Newfoundland started off as a fishing place where the British use to send men over to fish cod for six months, and have them come back. I was never really good with numbers and date, so I apologize four not being able to be more precis. One would think that England having colonized so many places would consider diverting some of its resources to building some settlement on Newfoundland so that the poor men wouldn't have to go back and forth between the two continents. Eventually people settled in Newfoundland. (I later found out the reason for not initially having settlement was mainly political, because at the time, the territorial claim for Newfoundland was still unsettled between England and France.) Anyway, apparently they fished so much that the cod population had declined drastically (yea, or boo the advancement of technology...?), and in 1992, the government passed a law to suspend cod fishing (a.k.a. the Cod Moratorium). This moratorium from an environmentalist's point of view was a big save, preserving the few remaining cod, but from a political economical prospective, it was a disaster for the province's economy which relied principally on it's fishing industry, and specifically fishing for cod. Some more history, in 1497 when Giovanni Caboto, an explorer sailing for England landed in Newfoundland, he reported that the deep waters of Newfoundland had "so many cod you could scoop them in baskets". So cod was the image of Newfoundland. Now, two decades after the moratorium, the government has now announced certain periods when the public is allow to fish cod for leisure.

Revenons à nos moutons ( French for come back to our sheep, which I suppose would be equivalent to getting back on topic in English), what you see on my dinner plate in indeed a piece of cod, the fish I was just saying which is no longer permitted to be harvested here. No, we did not catch this fish ourselves, so indeed,  it was store bought. (Correction, the cod for this particular meal came from a family friend who is a fisherman.) The irony is that what use to be a staple traditional meal -salted fish and brewis- is no longer a sustainable local food.

What are brewis (pronounced brews) and scrunchions you ask? Well, brewis is a dried dense bread in the shape of a dinner roll and is prepared by being soaked in water and then boiled. Scrunchions are tiny salted chunks of pork fat that is fried until crisp, and sprinkled onto the meal to add flavour.

A lot of the Newfoundland foods remind me of Québec foods. The scrunchions remind me of les oreilles de crisse (Christ's ears), which are fried fatty pieces of pork cheeks eaten at les cabanes à sucre, farms where they make maple syrup. I am not sure if other parts of Canada have a tradition of eating pickled beets and other vegetables, since as I have already mentioned, I have never really had the opportunity to try other Canadian food while traveling across Canada. However, I have had the pickled beets and vegetables before with quebecois cuisine.

Left to right: From a recent potluck- chili, Fisherman's brewis, soy rice, and green Thai curry.

Note, the fish and brewis meal is not to be confused with Fisherman's brewis, which entails the same two menu items, but in this case, the bones are removed, and cod is crumbled into pieces. Then the fish is mashed together with the cooked brewis and pieces of scrunchions. There might be other ways of eating this combination of cod and brewis which I have yet to encounter.

Knowing someone touched by cancer

Cancer. I am starting to know people around me who are or have been touch by it; however I was not prepared to learn the number of people around me here in Springdale, NL who have been touched by cancer.

Team "Sow the Seeds of Hope". 

Last Saturday, I was at the Cancer Society Relay for life in Kingspoint to support some of my colleagues participating in the 8h walk-a-thon. There, I learned that two of my colleagues are cancer survivors, one preparing for another treatment (around five or so years my senior), and a handful more colleagues have lost family and friends, or know someone fighting, recovering and beating cancer. I knew that at the Relay I would be meeting people who care deeply about the fight against cancer, but what I did not expect was to see so many people I worked with battling cancer, or know someone immediately touched by cancer. 

With a population of around an estimate of 5,000 in the Springdale and surrounding area, the prevalence of cancer seems more than what I would expect for such a small population. Back in May 2012, CBC had already reported that Newfoundland and Labrador have more recorded cases of cancer (new cases as opposed to relapse cases) than most other Canadian provinces. The article did not reveal much about the possible factors contributing to the higher noted prevalence other than hinting that it could be related to the higher rates of obesity, smoking, and possible genetic disposition for cancer in the province. (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2012/05/09/nl-cancer-rates-509.html)

In the past I have contributed when and where I could to the cause fighting cancer, including donating my hair for the third time just last month, but all of that was really an act of charity more than an act of genuine compassion. I had never sat down and listened or asked someone about their story for fear of prying too much, or accidentally saying something insensitive. That night at the Relay for the first time, I got to hear stories first hand and to my surprise, people were not shy about their stories as I had expected, but in fact, they really wanted to share with others their journey of fear, pain, struggle, weariness, and determination and survival. I was moved to hear stories of survivors undergoing treatment, not once, twice, nor trice, but amounts up to two dozen times, and sometimes with year long breaks of thinking the battle was behind them, to then find out that it is not over and that they need more treatments. Being at at the Relay, I learned not only of the strength and courage of the survivors and fighters, but also that of their families and friends who have had to take up and or shared care-giving responsibilities, and having the strength to put on a brave face to inspire hope.  

13 inch of hair donated later...

Biking in Newfoundland: King's Point, Rattling Brook

Westbound at the side of the Trans Canada Highway
 outside of the visitor centre at the Springdale junction. 

Saturday was sunny, and a had high of 22 degrees Celsius (the annual maximum high here), so I decided to do some exploring on bike. I didn't really have a plan and had just made note of some of the surrounding towns that I could visit. My first stop was the Springdale visitor centre next to the Trans Canada Highway to pick up a town map, and to try out this much talked about Newfoundland meal, the jigg's dinner.

On my way out of town, I had crossed Kelly, my colleague and some of her friends coming back in town on bikes. They saw me heading out of town a little just before noon. In a way I like the small town community, because if I don't make it back after a solo ride, there is always someone who will notice. Friends back home have already urged that I purchase another cell phone; except the reality is that in between areas of civilization, one is lucky to find reception. The surrounding towns being smaller than Springdale are not serviced by any mobile phone company.  

A RV park at the centre of King's Point next to their hiking trail.
This park is large enough to service about two dozen trailers  

After the jigg's dinner, and chatting with various locals all intrigued by my presence, I decide I would only try out a short bike ride that afternoon. The nearest town is King's Point, and according to the road sign it is only 12 km away.  (Follow me on a map.) Having done some long distances before, not to mention a 30km ride on my first day biking with the women's group, I decide 12 km was doable. Little did I know that the 30 km the ladies took me on towards Little Bay was not representative of the terrain in the region, because the route towards King's Point, had two large hills! The ladies had laughed when they heard about my mistaken assumption. 

I saw a sign saying Township of King's Point,
and followed this gravel path,  only it lead me to a quarry. 

From King's Point, the tourist map had said I only needed to go another 5km before reaching Rattling Brook and the Falls, so naturally I had to go visit this place.  

At the foot of Rattling Brook Falls.

The 800 feet trail leading up to the look out for Rattling Brook Falls is as much of an attraction as the falls. 

The forest floor had such rich texture. In a way it was enchanted,
because the thick layers of moss looked so  inviting.

At the top of the trail with a view of Green Bay.

Near the very end of the town of Rattling Brook is a general store called Joshua Toms and Sons owned by a sweet old lady named Dulcie Toms who has been running the store for 50 years. (I was going to call it a corner store, because that is what we have in the cities, but in small towns, these are more appropriately called general stores, because they supply the locals with most of the necessity.) This old fashion general store full of assorted knick-knack attracted the camera crew of "Land and Sea", a CBC documentary on Newfoundland people, culture and life. http://www.cbc.ca/landandseanl/2012/07/dulcies-in-the-store.html 

Dulcie and I at the counter.
Note the display in the background.

So even though I regret not having had any time to get out of the city this summer (to get in touch with nature), this move to Newfoundland is making up for all of it. Joy's place where I am boarding at feels like being at a cottage, and just minutes out of town, I am out with the trees and birds (and moose and bear for that matter, but I have not encountered those yet!). Here are some photos from my bike ride that day.

I was never the type to take photos, because with my inherited 3.0 megapixel camera, there was always someone with a better camera than I at what ever social gathering, and always  someone with more patience to upload the photos afterwards, so I never developed the habit for taking photos. However, since I was riding solo this day, I had brought along my camera, and the beeping of my camera signaling the completion of a shot was oddly comforting, to a point I think I might now even consider it a friend. 

While stretching my feet, I serendipitous noticed
this cute little motivating phrase on the tongue of my biking shoe.
"Always lead, never follow."

   

Biking in Springdale

I have to say a big thank you to the following people that helped make sure I would have my bike up and running smoothly when I  arrived:

1) Mom for taking the time to cut out pieces of cardboard to give my wheels some protection,

2) Bri for using his metal work skills and making me a pair of super light weight spacers for my wheel skewers to make sure the front fork and chain stay did not collapse, and for letting me take his pedal wrench,

3) Liann for giving me many useful shipping tips such as put lightweight but high volume items ie. puffy sleeping bag, along with the bike for shipping to act cushioning and to save space in my suitcase; and to let the air out of the tires before shipping,

4) Dad for letting the air out of the tires, because I had forgotten.  

I was pleased to discover that a few of my colleagues are also fans of biking and are part of a women's biking group here in the region, so in no time I have found myself a little biking community. Most of the women have an upright hybrid bike. I am the only other rider with a road bike. The other road rider has a full carbon bike. On my first ride with them, they took me on a 30km tour of the region. The ride was easy, flat, an opportunity to chat and socialize and we even saw three eagles!

The Indian River crossing through the edge of Springdale.

Newfie food: Jigg's dinner

Jigg's dinner is  a hearty meal of pink salted beef still on the bone, boiled together with chunks of root vegetables including carrot, turnip and potato. This meal is said to be typically served on Thursday nights in Newfoundland homes and family style restaurants. My dinner was accompanied with mashed yellow peas, and a lightly sweetened bread pudding on the side. It is common to have gravy poured over the entire dish. Since most Newfoundland dishes are only flavoured with salt, you can usually expect to find various picked condiments at the table to go with the meal. My table had a small bowl of intense deep magenta pickled beets and bright yellow, mustard pickled cabbages, both of which I found as an absolutely wonderful addition to the meal. I had originally thought that my blueberry bread pudding was part of my dessert, and had found it weird that the server had drenched it in gravy, but later when a server had come to ask what I had wanted for dessert, I had then realized that in fact I was mistaken about the bread pudding. I ended up trying the partridge berry bread pudding which was drenched this time not in gravy, but in a transparent golden custard.   

Clockwise from top centre: Mashed peas, salted beef, turnip, potato, carrot, cabbage, pickled cabbage, pickled beet, blueberry bread pudding covered in gravy.

"Snow"/ storm days

Four days into to the beginning of the school term and we already have a "snow" day, in this case a storm day in anticipation for the Leslie, the tropical storm expected to arrive 9 am this morning with gust of winds expected to reach 110km/h. Since there is no school this morning until further notice, I am seizing the opportunity to update my blog in case we are impacted and experience a power outage from the storm.

Tammy-Lynn, one of the former monitrice working in Newfoundland said that last year, her school was closed for 13 "snow" days. That is like one day of closure per month, except all crammed into second term, since there is not usually snow until after Christmas. In my entire academic career, I only remember experiencing two snow days, once in grade 6 where the mayor of Toronto mobilized the army to help clear our streets (we have a good laugh now at having been such drama queens), and another time when I was in undergrad, but that was only a cancellation of evening lectures.

More update on Leslie later...

5pm:
The storm has passed, and all is still outside. It turned out Springdale was spared, and we did not end up experiencing much damage other than a few hours of heavy rain and wind. Other places in Atlantic Canada and the Maritime were less lucky. The evening news broadcast a tally of the various damages from landslide from the heavy flow of water, washed away roadway, flooding, damage from the wind. Two towns, Badger and Triton, just around 75km away from us were really impacted by the storm. These things are hard to predict.

Missing my ethnic foods!

Ah, yes, this is the third post of the day on the topic of food, but I can't help myself. I like food!

In the four days I have been here so far, I haven't had the time to cook, and have resorted to checking out all the food places that Springdale has to offer.

On my second day here, we went out to Marie's for a lunch social after our staff meeting. Marie's is a Chinese and Canadian restaurant and motel. Having forgotten all about Chinese-Canadian foods in rural Canada, I made the great faux pas of ordering a Chinese item from the menu. Out of the twenty people in our group, I was the only Chinese on staff, and the only one who ordered a Chinese dish. Everyone else ordered something Canadian like grilled cheese, soup, or salad. I thought to myself, why order Canadian when there are only two Chinese restaurants in town? It turns out, despite ordering a Chinese dish, my beef chow mein did not come with any mein (yellow Chinese fried egg noodles), and instead was more of a chop shue of beef, cabbage and some carrot shreds probably included to add colour to the plate. The only thing remotely Chinese about my chow mein dish was the trademark starchy sweet and salty sauce, which itself was a meager imitation.

After the failed attempt at satisfying my homesick craving for Chinese food, I decided to seek out the remaining Chinese restaurant in town to try my luck.  Bo Jo's is just around the corner from my place, and known for the best Chinese food. This time, I had learned my lesson and carefully studied the ingredient list under the menu options. Again, all the dishes listed under chow mein were not accompanied by any egg noodles. Seeing my puzzlement, the hostess, a Newfie, offered me the opportunity to speak with one of the members of the Chinese family that owns and runs the restaurant. I met the lady of the family and restaurant and delicately asked her first if she spoke any Chinese, whether it was Mandarin or Cantonese, and once establishing that she did indeed speak Chinese, proceeded to discuss with her what I was hoping to find in Chinese. It turns out, this family speaks Cantonese (my mother tongue), and they also come from Taisan, the same region as my dad's village. We bonded instantly over our common dialect, heritage, and regional roots. I asked her what is the one item I can order which most closely resembles authentic Cantonese cuisine. Serena, the owner, suggested the Cantonese chow mein containing a mix or vegetables, and three types of meat: chicken, cha sui, the red roasted porc, and shrimp. This dish also included noodles! I was excited and eagerly ordered it for take out immediately. When I had finally brought it home and opened up the trademark Styrofoam box, I was disappointed to find that the noodle was not the bright yellow mein I was use to, but a noodle of faded yellow... a Mr. Noodle kind of noodle. The dish was still relatively good, but just not the same.

I already knew that I could not expect much of Chinese restaurants in places outside of Richmond (Vancouver), Markham (Toronto), and Montreal, since when ever we go on family vacations, my brothers and I always joke that we are doing a tour of Chinese eats in Canada, and not actually giving the local eats a chance. Chinese dads' need steamed white rice, and Chinese moms' like Chinese leafy greens. The most impressive Chinese restaurant which we came across on our trips was one in Summerside, PEI. Since rent is probably considerably cheaper, the restaurant had a fresh renovated look of authentic decor. We picked the restaurants because we saw chopsticks place on  the tables, and noted that it was family run. There, my mom talked directly with the family and got them to make us things that were not on the menu.  But again, they were pretty limited, since there are many ethnic ingredients and produce they do not have access to in rural Canada. After quizzing them on all the ingredients they had, mom in collaboration with them came up with a customized menu. The dishes they served us did not look menu pretty, but were more or less similar to the dishes we were use to eating back home.

Even though I had some exposure to the simpleness of rural towns, I continue to forget and take the diversity  of the larger cities for granted. Lucky for me, I have brought along a small tub of green Thai curry paste, and selected Indian spices which hopefully will sustain me until I convince the people who love me to send me more. (I sound like I cook a lot, but I don't, so I'm not all that worried about running out of these ingredients.) I regret not having packed the sesame oil which I contemplated about until I convinced myself it would be too messy, the  Sriracha chili sauce which you see at every table of Vietnamese restaurants, and Chinese sausages which my mom would always pack me back when I was on res. My mom was very nice and thoughtful, and at least remembered to send me off with two precious packs of Chinese beef jerky, the sweet and hot kind, my favourite.

Newfie food: Touton

**************The thing that is neat about Newfie culture, is that there has been very few assimilation with the mainland and their uniqueness is retained and still observable in their culture.****************

I will document all the various Newfie foods I have tried or come across.

Touton (T-out-in), this savoury fried burger-patty size dough is chewy like a yau ja gwai (油條), a Chinese fried doughnut, which of those of you who have never had the 1.5 foot long deep fried doughnut at a congee and noodle place, it is sinfully delicious with its crisps flaky exterior and chewy texture. The reason why I spent so many words describing its texture is because touton's don't have any particular taste, other than a slight saltiness, and thus its more notable trait is its texture. Newfies usually heat their touton up on a pan and eat it with toppings such as jam or molasses.  I ate my touton as an after school snack, but Newfies usually eat it as a breakfast item. Side note: It took me forever to pronounce the word correctly, because they drop the "t"s that are found in the middle of the word just as Torontonians drop the "t" at the end of Toronto, and I had a tendency to want to pronounce the "tout" part of touton as a "oooo" sound and not "out" sound.

Also check out the post titled "Newfie dessert list".

Newfie dessert list

This post will be the place where I add all the desserts I have come across.

A jam jam with tea.

Jam jams, one of the Newfoundland trademark, are soft spice and molasses cookies which contain a gushy amount of jam sandwiched in between the two cookies, where one cookie has a hole in the middle exposing  the jam delight.

Two bear claw cookies on the left and a black bottom muffin on the right.

Bear Claw Cookies are again molasses and spice cookies, soft, but slightly chewy. Apparently, molasses is a very popular ingredient here in Newfoundland. I am not sure if these are specific to Newfoundland or just in my town here in Springdale, but they are a common treat in the household along with Black Bottom Muffins, which are cupcake shaped brownie cheese cakes.

Lemon pie and Sex in a pan.

Another kind of dessert which everyone seems to know about here is the Sex in a Pan cake/ pie. I am not sure if it has a cake status or a pie status, since it is similar to a cream pie, but I suppose if it is baked in a quadrilateral shaped pan instead of a circular pan, it can be called cake instead of pie. This dessert has a shortbread-like crust as a base, with the option of having pecan bits, a layer of cream cheese and whip cream, then a layer of chocolate pudding, then vanilla pudding, and finally more whipped cream to top it off. It is indeed quite sinful. 

Partridge berry pudding

Partridge berries are common to Newfoundland and are small red berries, half the size of a cranberry, and tart much like one too.

Updated on Feb 26th, 2012.

Day 1 in Newfoundland

Hi everyone,

So instead of trying to update everyone by e-mail, I decided to start a blog to document my work year in Newfoundland, and all can read it at their leisure and comment if they desire.

This blog entry is a modified version of an e-mail.

Day1:
Newfoundland, here I am. It was an eventful day. First off, our car broke down on the way to the airport, so we had to call a cab to pick us up from the side of the highway. Thankfully, my mom made us leave early enough that I arrived at the airport in good time despite the incident. Once on the plane, we were about to take off, when there was an announced medical emergency, and we had to turn around to drop off the ill passenger. That delayed us an hour and a half. Thankfully, the teacher I am working and living with, as most Nuffies, is as relaxed as ever, and was not bothered at all by the delay. It was another hour and a half drive before we finally arrived into Springdale. 

Our yard.

I have a great living situation. The place I am staying at over looks the coast on the south side, with a view of a chain of mountains in the distant background. I have yet to learn the names of those mountains. My room is quite large, furnished with romantic white dresser and drawers, and covered in flowery wall paper.  My room is also pre-furnished with a lot of angels figurines. I guess they can look over me. We also have a self-sufficient black cat named Black Beauty, which I am still unsure if I might be semi-allergic to.

View from our porch.

I haven't had the energy to unpack, nor check up on my bike. I live in town and am fortunate to be only a 5-10 minute walk to most amenities, no different than what I am use to in back home and in Toronto and Montreal. The only amenity I have missed so far are the local coffee shops. So far I only know of one coffee shop, and that is Tim Hortons which is near the edge of town. (The Tim Hortons is one of the town's main attraction and dare I say pride.) There are two grocery stores (which open from 9am-9pm!), two thrift store, one clothes department store, one Sears, one Subway, one chicken fast food chain named Mary Browns, which is apparently really popular in Newfoundland, I think two pizza place, one cinema, and two banks (Bank of Montreal and Bank of Nova Scotia), neither of which is my bank. After having lived in Ontario, Quebec and now Newfoundland, if I were to reconsider opening an account with another bank, the Bank of Montreal wins for having a good spread of service across Canada.

Bo Jo's next to the Salvation Army thrift store on Main St.

Across the street from Bo Jo's; two different looking worlds.

I am such an ignorant city girl, because I realize, I probably should have taken in consideration friends' advice on rural Canada and bought some all terrain bike tires while I was still in a big city. The main roads are paved, however when a car comes, the towns' people recommend that bikes squeeze over on to the gravel shoulder until the car has passed. Also most side roads to various residential areas are only paved in gravel. The nearest bike shop is two hours away in Corner Brook, and it turns out, it is advisable to call the shop in advance to verify that the sought out item is in fact in-stock, or that it needs to be pre-ordered by the shop before you arrive. Another reality of rural Newfoundland is that apparently there is a Walmart one hour away in Grand Falls, but that one would be lucky to find what one desired in-stock since the instant that stock arrives, the stock is said to be consumed at great speed by everyone else who have equally patiently been waiting for it.

Neat Newfoundland fact: It was already supper time when I arrived. They eat supper around 5pm. Breakfast is in the morning, dinner is at noon, and lunch is a snack right before bed! If I get invited for a meal, I need to make sure I have the meal time straight!