Approximately eight hours after I started my task, I am done. Its about 40°C in the house. Many stages later I wonder how in hell womenfolk back in the day managed. I wonder this all the time as I do the things I do.
So once the flippers were cooked...at least they seemed cooked with the meat sliding off the bones...I decided to leave three plain and do the other four with pastry and gravy. And for all those poor people who don't understand the Newfoundland way and the seal hunt...this is only part of what its all about. Being a Newfoundlander is drooling over flippers doused in gravy made with salt pork fat fried goldeny crunchy and onions topped in tea bun pastry. And well I pity the crowd who think its all about saving the little white coat...who has been saved for decades now. I will do my part for saving my heritage...and I don't mind telling anyone I support the sealers. And just think...I am a townie (even if I did transplant myself into the woods) and so are my parents. But I digress yet again.
This was my first time cooking flipper. It was something I only ate at Nan T's house on Queen's Road. The smell reminds me of Nan T wearing her apron...coming out of the pantry...yes she had a pantry. Nan had a clear dish that were for flippers and turrs.
If you're gonna try flipper cooking for yourself...try two. Two is sensible...seven is hard core. But I cross another thing off my bucket list today and will be whomping up more flipper pies in the future.
I was promised a stuffed whitecoat by a sealer on a ship in st. john's harbour in the late 70s. It was the first time I had ever seen a man wear an earring, and I thought he was a pirate. Never did get the whitecoat. Although I'm sure the dog would have eaten it by now, it would have been classic to sit next to the fireplace in the parlour of my sealing captain's home!
ReplyDeleteAnyone who thinks clubbing a seal is cruel but eats animals kept in captivity only to be hung up by a leg and cut to bleed to death is a moron.
Your flipper pie recipe would be appreciated...
Maid. Flipper Pie! Best kind. I usually make my poor Mom cook it. She really does it better than me. The only times I cooked it was for the mainlanders when I lived in T.O. and I used canned seal. Not quite the same though.
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