A childhood memory of mine is coming home for supper at 5 p.m. and asking the question, “What's for supper?” Now suppertime in Newfoundland is really dinner here in Alberta and dinner in Newfoundland is lunchtime here. Our lunchtime back home could be any time really – may be an afternoon lunch or a bedtime lunch. My husband's grandfather never missed a night but he had a feed of squid, caplin, herring, or something of that nature cooking in the oven for a bedtime lunch. It was something that his grandson looked forward to every summer on his visits.
The answer to my question always seemed to be fish or potatoes. Guaranteed, every night, if it wasn't fish and potatoes, it was potatoes and something or fish and something. And you could be sure there wasn't any alternative. You'd either eat it or do without.
Back then, anyone could go down to the wharf during the fishing season when the fishermen would come in and get a few meals of fish thrown into shore. If you couldn't see the boats coming in, you'd sure hear the seagulls. Every house in the harbour had their winter's supply of fish in their freezer.
Many folks also grew their own vegetables, made their own pickles and beets and stocked up for winter. There used to be a good many cellars around the community loaded with vegetables. A shortage of work, lack of money, and poor weather conditions made for long winter months but every household prepared itself every spring and summer.
If you had flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and milk, then you had a meal. Toutons, dumplings, tea buns, cakes and so much more were made from these ingredients. The good home cookin' that we had as kids was taken for granted and now I can't even come handy to the taste.
One famous Newfoundland dish is ‘Fish n Brewis'. I requires 4 cakes of hard bread, 2 lbs. of cod, and 1 cup of salt pork, finely diced. And of course you just can't have fish and brewis without drawn butter. It calls for cup butter, 2 onions, 2 tbsp. flour, and 1 cup of water. So first, you break each bread into 2 or 3 pieces and soak overnight in cold water. Use lots of water because it will be absorbed. If you use salt cod that will need to soaked as well. If using fresh cod, add 1 tsp. of salt to water when cooking. In the morning, change water on salt cod and simmer gently until tender, 5-10 min. Remove from heat and drain. Skin, bone and flake fish. Place hard bread in saucepan with enough water to cover bread, use water in which it was soaked. Heat slowly just until it comes to a boil. Remove from heat and drain immediately. Add cooked, flaked fish and mix. Keep hot. Fry salt pork until golden brown and crisp. These scrunchions and fat may be poured over fish and brewis mixture when served, or all mixed up together. Serve hot. Drawn butter is sometimes used instead of scrunchions. To make drawn butter, melt butter in saucepan, add chopped onions and boil both ingredients together for a few minutes. Add mixture of water and flour for thickening. Pour drawn butter over fish and brewis and maybe add a few potatoes on the side.
Right on.
If you would like to share secrets of a dish or want to know how to make a particular one, drop me a line at [email protected]
