MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS IN NEWFOUNDLAND

By Jennifer Bain

How one expedition cruise company is nowbringing together food, culture and localtraditions to create understanding aroundissues that matter.

Fogo Island salt fish cakes with mustard pickles were an easy sell. So was moose, braised and tossed with root vegetables and kale in fresh pasta one night, and then worked into barley soup with turnips, carrots and celery another. But chef Lori McCarthy was anxious about presenting pan-seared seal loin to passengers.

The cut was carefully chosen for its tenderness, served withglazed turnips, potato purée and tart partridgeberry chutney. But even McCarthy’s fellow Newfoundlanders and Labradorians sometimes snub seal, scarred by badly cooked versions from when they were young, and she couldn’t predict how the international guests who were circumnavigating the island with Adventure Canada would react.

TASTE OF PLACE AMBASSADOR, LORI MCCARTHY

© VICTORIA POLSONI

“I wanted them to love it,” she remembers. “I wanted them to say, ‘The first time I had seal it was amazing.’”

The cultural food enthusiast and founder of Cod Sounds, a culinary excursion company, need not have worried. That night aboard the Ocean Endeavour, adventurous eaters who ordered seal from the fledgling Taste of Place menu “cleaned their plates,” and McCarthy realized what a privilege it was “to get a chance to create a story from the beginning.”

Ocean Endeavour

© MICHELLE VALBERG

For Bill Swan, who co-founded the expedition cruisecompany and now focuses on partnerships andsustainability, it has always been important to “provokethought” and “spark conversations” around everything fromIndigenous relations and climate change to hunting andfishing customs and food.

I’ve travelled with Adventure Canada and know that meaningful cultural exchanges are at the heart of everything it does. But while sit-down meals (and elaborate tea times) were wonderful,they didn’t necessarily speak to where we were. It was theinformal cultural tastings of caribou and whale that I will never forget, as well as eating musk ox hot dogs during an afternoon in Nuuk, Greenland, and enjoying a salmon roe, blackberry and whipped topping dessert while visiting the Inuit village of Kangiqsualujjuaq, Quebec.

THERE ARE MANY OPPORTUNITIES TO CONNECT WITH LOCALS

©VICTORIA POLSONI

When Swan worked with McCarthy and others to create Tasteof Place, it was to “double down” on using food as a bridgeto every other important topic and give food its “rightfulplace on the stage.” The program was quietly piloted in 2018and then unveiled in 2019 on the company’s Newfoundlandcircumnavigation route because the province has strong foodtraditions.

Taste of Place will return next year for the Newfoundland itinerary and the Mighty Saint Lawrence route that criss crosses Quebec, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Saint-Pierreand Miquelon (part of France). And by 2023, it could roll out on Arctic itineraries.

COASTLINE OF ST. JOHN'S

When guests gather in the ship’s Nautilus Lounge for the dailyrecap just before dinner, they’ll learn whether there are Tasteof Place dishes on that night’s menu, plus get a head’s up onany food lectures, cocktail demonstrations, foraging walks, orshore visits to food producers and restaurants planned for the next day.

Passengers will also use placemats detailing how the foodprogram celebrates, engages and educates. They will meetfarmers, fishers, foragers, cheesemongers, craft beveragemakers and food leaders. They might visit root cellars anddive for scallops (or at least eat them while learning why diverscallops are a sustainable choice).

PAN-SEARED FOGO ISLAND COD

© VICTORIA POLSONI

Everything on expedition cruises is subject to changedepending on wind and weather, but some things are certainon the next Newfoundland journey. There will be moose, andthe story of how it was introduced to the island as a foodsource and is still hunted as a rite of passage. And there willbe hand-line cod (caught using traditional methods) fromFogo Island because it lets McCarthy tell the “old, new andfuture” tale of Newfoundland’s favourite fish. It will surely bepan-seared and perhaps served with tartar sauce, made fromwild beach greens. And she can be confident guests will onceagain clean their plates.

TRANSPORTING SHEEP BY BOAT, BURIN PENINSULA

© SCOTT MCCLELLAN