Newfoundland and Labrador FOOD

 

Feeling gut-foundered? It’s probably time for a proper scoff, the kind you’ll only find in Newfoundland and Labrador, eh b'y?


Food is a favourite part of travelling for me.

This combination of fries, piping hot gravy, and dressing (aka stuffing, like the kind you’d have at Thanksgiving) packs a powerful flavour punch. 

TOUTONS

Most frequently eaten for breakfast - but delicious at any time - toutons are in some ways like a pancake crossed with a donut. Typically the yeasted dough is pan fried until golden and served with molasses or corn syrup. Add a hot cup of your favourite morning beverage and you have yourself a fine start to the day!

JIGGS DINNER AND FIGGY DUFF

This traditional meal is commonly eaten on Sundays in many places around Atlantic Canada, but especially in Newfoundland and Labrador. You might have also heard it called a “cooked dinner” or “boiled dinner”. There are different theories regarding the origins of the Jiggs' Dinner name, but a popular one is about an old comic strip character named Jiggs, who loved corned beef and cabbage. No matter how the name came about, we say it’s delicious. The usual ingredients are salt beef or turkey, turnip, cabbage, potato, carrot, pease pudding, and more often than not, some kind of dessert.

Figgy Duff is a traditional dish, usually served along with Jiggs' Dinner. Unlike the similarly named figgy pudding, this recipe doesn’t use figs, but rather raisins, along with flour, molasses, brown sugar and butter. It's all mixed together and then place in a pudding bag and boiled. Very similar to the Scottish Clootie dumpling, it has its roots in the old Cornish term for raisin.

FISH AND BREWIS

This is a meal which has been around for quite a while. In the past, fishermen salted cod to help it last the long winters, as well as keeping it edible for long voyages at sea. The recipe may vary from community to community, or even household to household, but the primary ingredients are always the same - salt cod and hard bread, or tack. The typical recipe calls for the fish to be soaked in water overnight to reduce the salt content. The bread also gets a soak.

The next day, the fish and bread are boiled separately until tender, and then served together. You can add potatoes, sometimes mashed, but you definitely need scrunchins. These are salted pork fat which have been cut into small pieces and fried. Both the rendered fat and the liquid fat are then drizzled over the fish and brewis.

Scrunchions
Cubes of pork backfat, fried gently till the fat has rendered and they become salt-spangled porky puffs of pure joy.


BAKEAPPLES AND JAM

Bakeapples are also known as cloudberries. Bakeapple berries are found in northern tundra and peat bog habitats, are rich in vitamin C and contain few calories. They are generally ready for picking around mid-August and are notoriously hard to pick, which make them a somewhat rare delicacy. These delicious gems make for a distinct tasting jam, juice, tart or pie, and when paired with whipped cream they become a memorable experience.


MOOSE

Moose meat is a big part of the Newfoundland and Labrador diet. It’s lean, delicious, and can be cooked in so many different ways. Sausages and burgers are often found on restaurant menus, and sometimes you might even come across a moose pot pie or a roast. And if you ever have the opportunity to enjoy a moose fry over a camp stove, take it! Make sure you have some fresh homemade bread on hand to dip into the gravy.
Salt meat, as I mentioned earlier, is also an important part of Newfoundland and Labrador’s food culture—especially in Jiggs’ Dinner. Moose meat can be cured using the same traditional process as beef, so sometimes you’ll find it Jiggs’ Dinner or certain soups as well.



Also common with meals are white and black puddings, which many of you may be used to seeing on breakfast plates in Ireland and Scotland.



Fried cod cheeks and tongues are ubiquitous on menus here in Newfoundland and Labrador restaurants, but Mallard Cottage in Quidi Vidi village puts their own flavour into the making. The corn-fried cod cheeks are crispy on the outside and flaky on the inside and are served with a punchy spicy aioli Mallard is known for.



Flipper Pie



Not a euphemism. Flipper pie is made with actual seal flippers and I’m told it’s a delicacy; the seal meat is gamey yet fishy at the same time.
Iceberg Vodka / Iceberg Beer



Unique in the world, no one else harvests icebergs and turns the 10,000-year-old, pre-Industrial Revolution pure water into booze, but the Newfoundlanders.



Labrador tea

This most determined plant grows flat on the freezing tundra, its deep green leaves curled under and white flowers briefly blossoming.

Traditionally used by First Nations as a Vitamin C-rich tea, you can also find it as a botanical in Ungava gin.
Oyster leaf



The name of this curious wild-growing herb is a bit of a giveaway. It tastes exactly like an oyster: briny and fresh, but with a crunchy consistency.
Caribou moss

Another cheffy hand-foraged ingredient that comes from the tundra.
Partridgeberry

A little like a cranberry, this tongue-tinglingly sour berry comes with a side of amazing health benefits from fighting cancer to slowing the effects of ageing.
Purity Candy

Impossible not to have a good giggle at this heritage candy company who sell bags of Climax Mixture and Peppermint Nobs with a perfectly straight face.