Seal Flipper Pie and Other Gems

[Peter the eater]

My lovely wife brought back some unusual foodstuffs from her recent trip to St. John's, Newfoundland. I have great affinity for this place, it's people and the way they do just about everything. It's rocky, foggy, and cold with an amazing array of culinary flora and fauna, in addition to the outrageous seafood.

First up, the notorious seal flipper pie. I was expecting something strong and stinky, and frig-bye, was I ever wrong. The one I had, recently assembled at Bidgood's Country Cupboard in Goulds, was a rich and delicate meat pie that would fit right in at a swanky Anglophile Gastropub.

[nakji]

Seal-flipper pie byes! Nice. I never had one that looked as good as that one does.

My Mum's from Labrador, and a lot of her family live in Newfoundland, so I grew up on jigg's dinner, pickled beets, toutons, Red Rose tea you could stand a spoon up in, molasses on everything; especially Purity biscuits, and now that I come to think of it, Purity cordial drinks. I liked orange, myself.

Game plays a very large part of the cuisine from this area - moose, caribou, arctic char, rabbit, deer...growing up we always had a jar of rabbit in the fridge; and a frozen arctic char came down every year with my grandmother for her visits. And the moose! My brother (who lives in St. John's) was just bragging to me the other day about the moose steaks he had on the barbecue; I remember the year my aunt got her moose license - everyone got a piece. When I lived in Korea, I had a couple of friends from Newfoundland. For Christmas, their mum had sent over a bottle of moose, which they brought over for our Christmas potluck, mixed with roast potatoes.

[heidih]

Jar of rabbit, bottle of moose? Enlighten us.

[nakji]

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure myself, but the meats were preserved somehow. I suspect the rabbit was some variation of jugged hare, and the moosemeat preserved similarly. I'll have to ask my mother for more details.

[Peter the eater]

Jar of rabbit, bottle of moose? Enlighten us.

One of the things in my Goodie Basket is a jar of seal meat. It's a standard Bernardin mason jar with a label that says "Bottled Flipper" and a best before date 3 months from the time of bottling.

I don't know what I'll do with it yet, although I've been inspired by Paris Hilton's tee shirt which reads "club sandwiches not seals". How about a seal club sandwich?

[nakji]

Seal club sandwich? I can hear my mother cheering from here.

It's a standard Bernardin mason jar with a label that says "Bottled Flipper" and a best before date 3 months from the time of bottling.

Yes! Yes! That's exactly how the rabbit used to come. In a Mason jar.

[Peter the eater]

The actual recipe for the flipper pie above can be found here.

[Peter the eater]

Second up, Bakeapple Jam. It's from the bog and it's a bit seedy, but it's got a special honey-like wild berry flavour. It is fully divine on a bagel.

[nakji]

My mother loves those in pie. I wonder if you could make tarts with the jam?

[Pierogi]

Second up, Bakeapple Jam. It's from the bog and it's a bit seedy, but it's got a special honey-like wild berry flavour. It is fully divine on a bagel.

Love, love, LOVE the name of the company that made that jam...."The Dark Tickle Company" !

LOVE it !

[chromedome]

A "tickle" is a small inlet, and there are plenty of those in Newfoundland. A "tickle ace" is a particular seagull that is palatable enough to be eaten, where most are not.

"Bakeapples," or cloudberries, look like a yellow-orange raspberry but with woodier seeds. Instead of tall canes, they grown on tiny plants in the middle of marshy bogs, where biting insects will swarm you in thick clouds. Oh, and you get one berry per plant. Someone gives you bakeapples, you *know* you're loved.

Lots of Newfoundlanders have pressure canners, because in the old days it was the only way to put up meat from a moose or other large animal, that didn't involve salting the damn thing. Not that cured meats are bad, by any means, but by spring you'd get pretty tired of it. I still get the occasional jar of moose or seal from relatives back on the Rock.

Yeah, lots of old-school recipes out there for game. You ever find yourself in need of a recipe for jellied moose nose, I'm your man.