05/28/2024
So, what's on my mind.??
Of late, I've been "blue skying" with some people on eating locally sourced food and what, exactly, is "local and or traditional NL food".
That is a more complex question than it appears on the surface.
For example, crab cakes are an American "thing" and I sincerely doubt they would come up in a conversation about NL food. Yet, crab is an abundant and lucrative harvest in NL.
???
If I was to serve you a meal that went like this:
Amuse: Tiny Crab Cakes with salt water parsley aioli.
Soup: lobster bisque topped with housemade crustini spread with lobster roe pate
Main:rabbit ravioli with partridge berry cream and minced chantrelles.
Dessert: blueberry fritters finished with birch syrup.
..you would likely think you were in New York. Yet every component of that (except the flour) can be sourced on the island of NL and the Big Land.
Are we stuck? Is jiggs dinner and fish and chips or fish and potatoes the only traditional NL food? RABBIT PIE? OR, is it that our ancestors were working so hard they did not have the time or energy to play with what is available here? I think so and I know, many before me have come to same awaking and pushed for a new narative. BUT the conversation about any regional cooking, NL included, has to become about ingredients AND process.
Hats off to the chefs and foragers who are changing that mind set! (I humbly include myself in that group).
NL has SUCH an abundance of food stuffs that the world loves, we forget that a part of our own heritage is that we (ancestors?) Never felt that we had had was "good enough " and we served our guests food from "other"...canned ham, klick, Kam, potre meat, Vienna Sausages with a pickled onion and a block of cheese.
So, the end of my "quiet rant" is:
"When you ask me for local food, do you really want me to tell you(serve you) spicy micro greens, green peppers, misshapen cucumbers, mixed lettuces, strawberries, lobster bisque, crab cakes etc etc because that is local... or do you want me to serve you fish and chips or cooked dinner? (For those who don't know, cooked dinner is a tradition in Nl it includes a boiled dinner anchored with salt meat and a fresh roast of something. If you were rich (a relative term in NL but loosely... the merchant class) it (the fresh roast) would be a chicken if you were not as "rich" you'd make do with a roast of moose or a rabbit.
So...please wade in (be kind) what do all of my Facebook Hive have to contribute to the conversation about local vs traditional? ( FYI, if you had a few chickens in your back yard, chicken wings could be a local thing) what exactly is local vs/traditional.
Cuz, with the exception of the flour I can make you pizza rhat is as local as it comes. (May be the tomatoes and the cheese are a bit tricky)
A await your input.
