Traditional Newfoundland Food: Cod and Other Seafood

Traditional Newfoundland cod and seafood preparations.

Thanks to my friends Gwen and Chris for their help with the cod section.

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Sources 

 ¦ “Seal Meat,” Wikipedia, last edited February 21, 2025,  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_meat ¦ 

 ¦ “Flipper Pie,” Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, 3rd edition, https://dchp.arts.ubc.ca/entries/flipper%20pie¦ 

 ¦ “Capelin,” Wikipedia, last edited May 23, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capelin ¦ 

Transcript

Hi, I’m Wayne Jones. Welcome to Newfoundland Boy, a podcast about the Canadian province of Newfoundland. This is episode 39: “Traditional Newfoundland Food: Cod and Other Seafood.”

I somehow managed to get through an episode of my podcast last week about traditional Newfoundland food without mentioning seafood. It’s abundant in the province. I don’t think there’s any question that the staple is cod fish. As I mentioned last time, it is such a staple that when you just say fish, people know you are referring to cod. Perhaps this can be said of all foods, I’m not sure, but cod is a seafood that is absolutely delicious when prepared expertly, and very average when it is not. I don’t often make it myself, but I have it now and then.

I think of cod as coming in one of six very different kinds of dishes:

1.     Cod prepared as a fancy main course. Often it’s baked or sautéed and not as a thin fillet of the fish but a substantial piece. The secret is to have it fully cooked but still tender and flaky, and not overdone with seasonings or sauces. Delicious.

Cod are large fish in the water by the way: according to Google Gemini, in Newfoundland they average about 2 or 3 kilograms (4.5 to 6.5 pounds approximately) and are 60 to 70 centimetres long (about 2 feet). But they can weigh up to 40 kilograms (90 pounds) and be a metre (or about 3 feet) long.  

2.     Cod used for fish and chips. Alas, this is probably the preparation I’ve had most, and quality can vary enormously. In this case, the cod is generally a fillet, and the variations come in the type and amount of batter, the amount of oil that is absorbed, and the skill of the cook. Sometimes it tastes like a mouthful of grease and a whole lot of batter, but at its best it has a thin and not-too-greasy batter, and pure-white soft cod inside.

3.     Fish cakes. This is a classic Newfoundland dish. The main ingredients are salt cod and potatoes, and typical additional ingredients are onions and an herb called savoury. These are also deceptively difficult to make. If you start by trying to scrimp on the cod, then you are a bad person and most Newfies will wish that during the winter you develop a hole in your boots on the coldest and wettest day. A fish cake, if I have to say it out loud, should taste like fish, and not like potato that has a wisp of unspecifiable saltiness about it. These are pan-fried and another trick of preparation is to make sure you brown them just enough on each side. Not too white, but don’t burn them either.

4.     Fish and brewis. For those not in the know, the brewis part is spelled B-R-E-W-I-S, and so has nothing to do with beer. It is what is called hard tack or hard bread, basically a hard and dry biscuit. When it is boiled with the fish—note that it is just called fish, but it means salt cod—it softens. I have to admit that I have never had it. This may mean that I will soon be receiving a letter from the Newfoundland government telling me I am no longer qualified to live in the province. Well, I’ve had a good run …

5.     Pan-fried. This is a simple but tasty typical home preparation. The cod fillet is often just dusted with flour, or with egg wash and some bread crumbs, and fried in a pan. But it’s also a preparation on the menu of many restaurants. It emphasizes the taste of the cod because it is so little dressed, and the light sear in the pan is important.

6.     Cod au gratin. This is of course not unique to Newfoundland, but again a typical simple home preparation, and again, an item you find on the menus of some restaurants. My friend Chris doesn’t like it very much, so he refers to it as cod au rotten.

Newfoundlanders like other seafood as well. One that I like is scallops and you can sometimes get them in restaurants freshly caught on the same day. The others, I don’t care for, and in fact would go so far as to say I won’t eat them: lobster, crab, mussels. I’ve had lobster once in my life, about thirty years ago, and have never had it again. Mussels I’ve had a couple of times, the last time about fifteen or twenty years ago, and I was happy there were frites to mask the taste.

There are two other seafoods that deserve a special mention, and one of them is not strictly speaking a seafood or fish: seal meat, and traditionally served in seal flipper pie or often just called flipper pie. I have never had it and don’t plan to, so I don’t know what it tastes like. I know what it looks like only from pictures: check out the ones in the Wikipedia entry linked to in the show notes. I just don’t find that appetizing, no matter how much you cook it or how much sauce you drown it in.

And finally a fish that deserves mention in any discussion of Newfoundland is capelin. Spelled as C-A-P-E-L-I-N and sometimes without the E. The mating ritual of capelin engenders a whole human social ritual as well. The males and females swim right to the shore, a phenomenon referred to as the capelin “rolling.” This happens generally in May and June, and many Newfoundlanders go to the beaches to see the capelin rolling. Yet again, I am a failed Newfoundlander, because I have not yet witnessed this. The mating takes place but this is also a time when many capelin are caught, not only by those fishing, but also by cod, for which capelin are a staple of their diet.

And that’s all for this episode. Thanks for listening. Next week I’ll finish up this little tour of the Newfoundland table by talking about snacks and junk food and some other sins. If you enjoy the show, consider giving me a like or adding a comment. And please join me again next Saturday.

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SHOW NOTES 

Traditional Newfoundland cod and seafood preparations.

Thanks to my friends Gwen and Chris for their help with the cod section.

 — 

Sources 

 ¦ “Seal Meat,” Wikipedia, last edited February 21, 2025,  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_meat ¦ 

 ¦ “Flipper Pie,” Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, 3rd edition, https://dchp.arts.ubc.ca/entries/flipper%20pie¦ 

 ¦ “Capelin,” Wikipedia, last edited May 23, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capelin ¦