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A good scoff, cod tongues, toutons and tea on The Rock aka Newfoundland

ElsieD

By ElsieD
in Food Traditions & Culture

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ElsieD

ElsieD

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We are at the airport waiting to board our flight.  As we seem to have interested folks from different parts of the world who may not know too much about our province,  I thought I would start this blog by giving you an overview of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL).

 

Before Newfoundland  became part of Canada in 1949, it was a British Colony.  Cupids, a town on Conception Bay, was settled 406 years ago, and is the oldest continuously settled official British community in Canada.  Most of the early permanent settlers came from southwest England and southeast Ireland although  the French also settled here and in the 17th century Newfoundland was more French than English.  French is still spoken in Port au Port Penninsula, on the western side of the island, with English spoken everywhere else.   Just off the coast of south west Newfoundland, St. Pierre et Miquelon are islands that are still a colony of France.  There is a regular ferry service between Fortune, NL and St. Pierre et Miquelon.

 

Geographically, the capital of St. John's is on the same latitude as Paris, France and Seattle, Washington.  In size, Newfoundland and Labrador is a little smaller than California, slightly bigger than Japan and twice the size of the United Kingdon.  NL covers 405,212 sq. kilometers (156,453 sq. miles) with over 29,000 kilometers (18,000 miles) of coastline.  By itself, the island of Newfoundland covers 111,390 square kilometers (43,008 sq. miles).

 

The population of NL is 510,000, of whom 181,000 live in St. John's.  While there are some larger towns, vast areas are sparsely populated.

 

In Newfoundland there are no snakes, skunks, racoons, poisonous insects or arachnids.  There is also no ragweed - allergy sufferers rejoice!  There are over 120,000 moose and it is home to one of the world's biggest caribou herds.   They also have some of the continent's biggest black bears.

 

Note: This information was taken from the official Newfoundland and Labrador web site.

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cakewalk

cakewalk

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Very much looking forward to this blog. I'm floored by small population, given the geographic size you mention. (Everything is relative. I live in Manhattan, where the only sort of emptiness we're familiar with is internal!) Safe travels. 

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JoNorvelleWalker

JoNorvelleWalker

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My only visit was a few hours at the Gander airport during a hurricane.  When the pilot announced the flight was being "diverted to Gander"  I understood him as saying "diverted to Ghana" -- which might have been even more interesting.

 

Very much looking forward to your adventures!

 

 

Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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Ashen

Ashen

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If you get a chance for a feed of halibut cheeks , get in on it.   Even better than cod in my opinion, although my wife is crazy for the cod tongues and says I don't know what  I am talking about. lol 

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"Why is the rum always gone?"

Captain Jack Sparrow

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chromedome

chromedome

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At culinary school, years ago, we broke down several kinds of fish during that particular module. To the amusement of the instructor, after he was done I cut out the cheeks from the halibut and the tongues and cheeks from the cod and fried them up as a "taster." A couple of my Asian classmates were seriously intrigued by the tongues, with their mix of textures. 

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“Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.” - William Cowper, The Task, Book Three

 

"Not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition...The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.” - psychologist David Dunning

 

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ElsieD

ElsieD

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We have landed and have checked into our hotel room.  Since I promised to show all our meals I'll begin with our lunch.  As you know, you know have to buy your airplane lunch and they are usually not very good, especially in the cheap seats.  So, we bought 2 sandwiches from a place all Canadians will be familiar with - Tim Horton's.  A turkey and bacon sandwich for him, ham and cheese for me.  We ate them once we were on our way.  

 

We are now on our way to get something to eat for supper and also to find the local liquor store for some wine.  Our room has a fridge which is handy as we are white wine drinkers.  I'll post more later tonight.

20160825_141735.jpg

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ElsieD

ElsieD

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Okanagancook,  i'll watch the video tomorrow.  The accents here can be pretty thick.  The people here often add an s to their verbs.  Like today, when at check-in the young lady said "when you leaves your keys".......

 

Rotuts,  Tim Horton's used to have very good donuts.  This was years ago.  They made them at each location so they were always nice and fresh.  They no longer make them on site.  From what I understand, they are shipped to all the outlets from some central location.  If anyone knows more than this, I'd be curious to hear it.   Anyhow, I no longer buy them,  they really aren't all that good.   Remember, though, DD used to have the DD wih the handle?   Those were GOOD!

 

Having checked in, and done some unpacking, we went to the liquor store aka Newfoundland Liquor Corporation.  Bought some Pinot Grigio and stuck it in the fridge in our room.  Then we went to a place called Pi Gourmet Eatery.  We had been there several times last year and really liked it so decided to go there tonight.  I had a smoked salmon calzone and John had the Carnivore pizza.  Both were good, but we did not tarry as we were keen to get back to the hotel. 

 

We made one wrong turn on the way there which added about 10 minutes to the trip.  We have a navigation system in our rental but sometimes the arrow has you going one way while the voice tells you to go another.  So we are trying to figure out where exactly we are going, it is dark, we are driving in an unfamiliar city and there are many, many one way streets, weird intersections and to top it all off, it is very, very hilly.   Turning around is no easy matter.

 

We are back in our room, sipping a glass of wine,  the football game is on and it won't be long before we call it a night.

 

Tomorrow morning John's sister and BIL are arriving from Calgary and we are spending the day with them.  Hopefully I will have pictures of whales and puffins to share with you.  There is a canvas print over the desk of a pair of puffins and I'll take a picture of it and attach it as well.  I should have lots to tell you about tomorrow.

 

20160825_141735.jpg

20160825_224425.jpg

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Alex

Alex

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11 minutes ago, Okanagancook said:

Pizza and a calzone?

 

See the third paragraph.

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

A king can stand people's fighting, but he can't last long if people start thinking. -Will Rogers, humorist

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Anna N

Anna N

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1 hour ago, Okanagancook said:

I HATE Tim Horton.

call me unCanadian

their coffee is flavourless and I find most of their food to be of low quality and salty.

there, I said it!

Couldn't agree more. 

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Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

My 2004 eG Blog

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suzilightning

suzilightning

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15 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

My only visit was a few hours at the Gander airport during a hurricane.  When the pilot announced the flight was being "diverted to Gander"  I understood him as saying "diverted to Ghana" -- which might have been even more interesting.

 

Very much looking forward to your adventures!

 

 

There is a very good book "The Day the World Came to Town" about Gander and the communities around it during the crisis of 9/11.  Imagine once all the planes are down and there are 6600 people to feed!

Love those little clowns the puffins...guess it's too late for any iceberg sightings?

 

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Nothing is better than frying in lard.

Nothing.  Do not quote me on this.

 

Linda Ellerbee

Take Big Bites

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