Newfoundland "Fish and Bruise"

[tombogan03884]

This is a recipe from the old time Fisherman, if a Newfy says "Fish" he means Cod, everything else has a name, Mackeral, Tuna etc.
Bruise refers to the ships bread or biscuit that is still available in stores in parts of Canada, They used to carry an axe on board to chop wood and "bruise" the bread. They are roughly oval, 1 1/2" -2" thick and about 4 inches long, ( And hard as cast iron )

Soak Salt Cod and biscuit over night in separate containers (2 biscuits per Lb of Cod )
Change water, boil till Cod falls off bones (can pick out bones at this time )
Drain biscuits add Cod
Add reduced Salt pork WITH grease
Mix.
You can add potato's and onions if you have them.

 The BEST (?) beverage to serve with this is "Screech" Like fine wine, you throw away the cap on opening. (unlike fine wine it might make you go blind    )
If you can not get real Screech make do with a mix of cheap rum and grain alcohol.

This is NOT a joke, this is what those old birds lived on back before WWII When Newfoundland was an Independent Country.

[Timothy]

My Dad had a Newfy "Screech" Certificate from his time in Newfoundland back in the 40's.  If rum was the crap they scraped off the bottom of the molasses barrel, screech was the stuff BELOW the sludge.........you can still buy a close cousin of that crap here in New England....

Yummy!    

[tombogan03884]

 That's it  
Rum used to be shipped in Barrels as well, Newfies were poor as dirt  so they would take the rum barrels 1/4 -1/2 fill them with water, boil it and then fill the rest with grain alcohol, that was Screech  

My Dad's first wife was a Newfy, her father was in the Royal Navy during WWI as a stoker (coal shoveler) on the HMS Hibernia during the Turkish campaign, (Gallipoli landings ) HMS Hibernia was later converted into England's first aircraft carrier. Before the war and until he came down to America he worked on the Grand banks fishing Schooners (and a little rum running during Prohibition ) Over the years my Dad passed on several stories about the hellish conditions in the Royal Navy in those days.
Also those days the fisherman were still relying on sail and oar power, They would Row Dories out from the Schooner and set "Trawls" a long horizontal line between 2 floats with the actual "fishing lines" hang down from it, often they would be a mile long and there would be several set by each Schooner. the fishermen would then spend the rest of the day in the dory fishing with a hand line until it was time to pull the trawl, by hand. The Schooner would then make the rounds back picking up each guy and his catch, if they could find him, it was not unheard of for some one to get caught in a fog and wind up rowing back to land, or just never being heard of again.
It made those guys on "Deadliest Catch" look like a bunch of pampered sissies.
But before WWII that was much of the coastal culture from Gloucester Ma. up through the Canadian Maritime's.
As a note, "Down East" refers to the sailors need to head south from Me and NH to catch the Easterly winds to the Grand Banks. (Georges Bank)