When I go on vacation I love to sample regional specialty dishes and interesting new foods (although we are frugal so we cook for ourselves lots of the time as well, to cut costs). While Newfoundland is known for some rather dubious foods such as fried bologna and vienna sausages, it also has fine seafood and delicious traditional baked goods available and we were fortunate to be able to sample some of each. We had several delicious fish dinners - some we bought and some we cooked ourselves. A couple of highlights include the fish cakes at The Treasure Box in Rocky Harbour (Gros Morne Park). They were delicious and served with toutons (more about them later), molasses, baked beans, and mustard pickles. The Treasure Box is both a craft shop and a relaxed cheerful eatery.
We also had amazing fish and chips from The Little Red Chip Wagon in the parking lot of the Bonne Bay Marine Station in Norris Point (Gros Morne Park). It was raining the day we had the fish and chips so we ate in our car looking out over the harbour. The fish and chips with cole slaw were perfect. The fish was crunchy on the outside and moist on the inside and the fries were homemade. Mmmm, wish I had some right now in fact.
We also had the most delicious salmon cakes when we stayed on Quirpon Island in a Lighthouse Keeper's Inn . They gave me the recipe so when I make them I will let you know.
We also had a Jiggs dinner when we stayed on Quirpon Island. It is a traditional boiled dinner consisting of corned beef, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, turnips, pease pudding, and dumplings all boiled together. It was served with molasses for the dumplings and mustard pickles for the corned beef. I know there are many variations to this dinner, both around Newfoundland and all down the eastern seaboard of Canada and the USA. I'm not sure how they vary - anyone know? I think one of the more unusual elements in this boiled dinner was the pease pudding, which was made by boiling split peas in a bag along with the rest of the dinner.
We also tried a few traditional baked goods. Touton which is a like a pancake made by frying bread dough in a pan with butter or pork fat was often made by the fisherman as a quick way to get some bread ready for the lunch meal. It is served with molasses or corn syrup. The first time we had touton they had a more homemade appearance (which you can see below as compared to the breadish rounds on my plate with the fish cakes in the first photo).
I just had to show you the charming 1940s fishing cabin where we first discovered toutons. The toutons had been cooked as part of a demonstration by one of the Parks Canada staff in Gros Morne National Park. I love the laundry billowing out on the clothes line behind the cabin. Boy was it windy there!
And finally we had molasses buns which tasted a bit like gingerbread, although they don't have any ginger in them. I guess molasses and cinnamon together trick the brain into thinking it is gingerbread. The molasses buns tasted delicious heated up with a bit of butter on them with a cup of tea. I also have the recipe for these and will give them a try soon.
Newfoundland is famous for its bakeapples which ripen at the end of the summer. You can buy bakeapple jams, spreads, syrups, and desserts all over the province. We bought many containers of bakeapple spread and had it on bread every day for lunch. Yummy!
We also bought a few jars of jam as gifts when we visited the Dark Tickle company in St. Lunaire-Griquet in Northern Newfoundland. Don't you love the name - Dark Tickle (although really it has a more maritime meaning than one would initially think because a tickle is a Newfoundland word for a narrow channel of water). You could buy Dark Tickle products all over Western Newfoundland.
And finally we couldn't resist bringing these bags of chips home for the kids to try. I feel like you could have your whole meal and it would just involve eating chips with different flavours on them. We've tried the roasted chicken and it was popular with 50% of us - the other 50% not so much. Have you ever had these flavours? Do you have unique chip flavours where you live? Do tell. We have barbecue, salt and vinegar, sour cream and onion, and ketchup, and plain, of course.
So there you have it - some of the food highlights from our trip. I'm keen to cook up the salmon loaf and the molasses buns so I'll let you know how they taste once I've made them.
One of the things we were really looking forward to was seeing in Newfoundland was icebergs. Well, did we see icebergs! They came in all shapes and sizes and just filled our iceberg bucket. A couple of times we heard a loud thunderous sound and then an iceberg would break apart right in front of your eyes. I just happened to have my camera pointed at the one above so captured it (although the quality wasn't the best because I didn't have time to change lenses to my telephoto) and made my very first GIF to show the iceberg breaking apart. I learned a lot about icebergs while I was there. The icebergs that float past Newfoundland formed 10,000 years ago in glaciers in Greenland. They take several years to make the journey from Greenland to Newfoundland before breaking apart. The little pieces of ice that break off from the main iceberg are called bergy bits or growlers depending on their size (bergy bits being smaller). This was another iceberg that broke apart while we were there and you can see all the growlers floating away from it. They actually pop and snap like a bowl of Rice Krispies which is the sound of air being released from the ice as they melt.
Naturally I pulled some of the ice out of the water and tasted it. It is supposedly some of the purest water in the world and is used for making beer and alcohol.
We saw lots of icebergs from the shore, but wanted to get up close and personal with some too (well in a safe and careful manner that is) so we took a trip with Northland Discovery Boat Tours from St. Anthony and loved it. We saw several whales and were taken out to see two icebergs - one so enormous that even the crew were impressed and were taking photos. It was approximately 200 feet high and 300 feet long.
And the other one was a lovely curved striated one.
They also pulled a piece of ice out of the water so everyone could taste some iceberg water.
And the photo below was taken by the staff on the boat tour - that's me in the grey hoodie and my mother in the red polar fleece. They put the photo on their Facebook page and tweeted it on Iceberg finder - which is a mighty thrill given that I stalked that website daily for two months before going to Newfoundland to see what was happening with the icebergs. You can see a screenshot below of the website with the tweeted photo on the left-hand side. I feel famous!
Icebergs are quite difficult to photograph because when they are in the sun the light bleaches out the details. So, although I loved seeing the turquoise blues and gleaming whites when the sun was shining,
I also loved the soft details you could see when the sun was low in the sky or the sky was cloudy.
Are icebergs on your bucket list? Have you ever seen one? This was definitely a thrill for us.
Oh my goodness - Newfoundland is wonderful! It was one of those trips that fell into place perfectly. We had sunny days for almost our entire two-week trip in a province that that has a reputation for plenty of rain, mist, and cloud. Our accommodations were great and some of them were spectacular (more about that later). The three photos above were some of the highlights of the trip. We saw all kinds of icebergs - enormous ones, blocky ones, bent ones, ones with blue veins in them, and we even saw a few breaking apart. How awesome is that! We stayed in a lighthouse keeper's inn on a gorgeous island and spent the day walking over the hills and valleys watching icebergs and whales. And everywhere we went we saw fields of the most beautiful wildflowers. I'm busy sorting through my photos and will share more as I get them organized. Have you been to Newfoundland? This is my third trip, but the first time to western Newfoundland and man, oh man, is it a treasure.
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