BY CLAY
LARROY
Traveling has
great educational value and increases of our knowledge. While travelling, a
person comes across people of different races, religions, regions, etc.
and also visits different places. Each
place has a historical importance of its own. Traveling is also a source of
great pleasure. It gives us respite from our dull and dreary routine. It
relieves us of our worries. It enables
us to meet new people and know their customs, habits and traditions. We can
also know the different kinds of food eaten by people belonging to different
regions. When you want to plan a
vacation contact me!
Eat & Drink
Eat
Rural Newfoundland is known for its seafood and its
working-class roots. Rural restaurants offer an over-abundance of "golden
foods" (deep fried) and classically simple fare. Vegetarians will be hard
pressed to find anything without meat in it, and vegans might want to pack a
lunch. But if you're a fish and chips lover, you'll "fill your
boots". Mainly you will see battered cod, "chips dressing and
gravy", dressing being a savory-laced stuffing mixture, fish-and-brewis
(pronounced "fish and brews", salt cod mashed up with a boiled
rock-hard sailor's bread, pork scrunchions, and traditionally drizzled with
blackstrap molassas), jigg's dinner (also known as corned beef and cabbage, a
traditional one pot meal consisting of salt beef, root vegetables such as
carrot, turnip, parsnip and potato, and cabbage. Also thrown in the pot is a
muslin bag of yellow split peas, known as pease pudding), burgers and fries,
and seafood chowder.
But if you're nice, and lucky, someone might invite
you in to their home for a homemade moose stew, rabbit pie, seal flipper,
caribou sausage, partridgeberry pie or a cup of tea with home-baked bread and
homemade bake apple jam. All of these are very interesting and delicious. A big
traditional meal is often referred to as "a scoff", and as
Newfoundlanders also love to dance and party, an expression for a dance and a
feed is a "scoff and scuff", which might be accompanied by accordion,
guitar, fiddle, a singalong, and a kitchen party. Kitchen socials are so much a
part of Newfoundland culture that even today, many houses are better equipped
to receive visitors through the back door (leading to the kitchen) than through
the front.
Fish has always been at the heart of Newfoundland
culture and even with the collapse of the commercial fisheries, you will find
seafood dishes almost everywhere. Cod, halibut, flounder, crab, lobster, squid,
mussels, and capelin (a small fish not unlike smelt or grunion) are all well
represented. So too are other animals supported by the ocean system - seal,
turr (murre) and the like.
A lot of Newfoundlanders habitually drink tea with
Evaporated or "canned" milk (a popular brand being Nestle Carnation
milk). If you prefer "regular" milk, you usually ask for "tea
with fresh milk" and this is, in fact, a good way to spot a Newfoundlander
(or at least an Atlantic Province native) in other parts of the country. An
easy excuse to have a friendly chat is to invite someone in for a "cup of
tea".
In "town" i.e. St. John's (and the other city centers of Newfoundland)
there are many good restaurants for the picking, and several vegetarian and
vegan friendly spots.
While in Newfoundland, particularly St. John's, do
try to sample some of the candy and sweets from Purity Factories, an island
fixture for many years and makers of several traditional-style confections. For
many Newfoundlanders, Christmas would not be the same without a bottle of
Purity Syrup, and breakfast without some of their partridgeberry and apple jam
wouldn't be right. (Note: Partridgeberries in Newfoundland are referred to in
many other places as "lingonberries".)
Drink
You will be in for a "time" (a social
gathering) with lots of cheer. This is a province that consumes per capita more
alcohol than any other in Canada. The legal drinking age in the province is 19.
You will find nearly all the alcohol you desire in a Newfoundland bar. George
Street in St. John's, Newfoundland has a reputation for having the most bars
per capita in North America. Its largest celebration, George Street Festival,
starts in early August and finishes on the Tuesday before Regatta Day.
Newfoundland & Labrador has a wonderful set of
regional beers that you cannot find outside of the province. While a number of
these are now brewed by the large Macrobreweries (Labatt and Molson), some of
them are not. Depending on where you are, you will be able to locate brews with
names like Kyle, Killick, Rasberry Wheat Ale, Hemp Ale, India, Black Horse,
Jockey Club, Dominion Ale, Quidi Vidi 1892, and Blue Star. Something you may
notice while drinking beer in the province is the tendency for the breweries to
advertise that their beers are union-made "right here" in
Newfoundland. Beer is commonly found in convenience stores with a liquor
license and from the Newfoundland Liquor Corporation (NLC). The NLC is a
government-owned monopoly and, much like most of Canada, there is a better
selection of local and foreign beers than there are provincial beers.
Inter-province trade in beer tends to be limited to the major brands, with no
attention paid to the many excellent craft breweries in other regions.
While in Newfoundland, you will also encounter
Screech. Screech is a Jamaican-style dark rum. This is the historic result of
the trade between Newfoundland and Jamaica. Jamaica got the salt cod,
Newfoundland got the rum. In all honesty, the Rum has been tamed to conform
with contemporary liquor laws, especially when compared to descriptions of its
much more potent ancestor. Hard liquor is usually found only at the
Newfoundland Liquor Corporation in urban areas, and in licensed convenience
stores in rural areas.
Newfoundland has a quiet but strong tradition of
berry wines. Blueberry wine, for those in the know, is as closely associated
with Newfoundland tastes as Screech, and for many, may be a far more palatable
first experience. Also be sure to look for partridgeberry, blackberry,
cloudberry, and rhubarb wines. All of these can often be found in NLC outlets.
The NLC retains the distinction of being the only liquor control boards in
Canada which still directly manufactures and bottles several of its hard liquor
products (Screech, notably, but also gin, brandy and two vodkas), to retain the
strong provincial association.
REFERENCE SITES:
I love Canada. It's a wonderful political act of faith that exists atop a breathtakingly beautiful land.
Yann Martel
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