A Wicked Scoff...Recipes and Food with Newfoundland and New England Influences.

This blog is dedicated to bring recipes, photographs, anecdotes, reviews and other insights on everything food related. As the name suggests, "A Wicked Scoff" will have a regional flare, a fusion if you will, of both Newfoundland and New England perspectives of the culinary world around me. Thanks for visiting and please come back often as updates will be frequent. Oh yeah, I also like tasting and cooking with regional beers. Expect a beer of the month, often paired with recipes.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Jiggs Dinner/New England Boiled Dinner...Part I

This wouldn't be much of a blog on Newfoundland and New England cuisine if I didn't dedicate a couple of entries to Jiggs Dinner, New England Boiled Dinner or whatever it is you call your salty cured meat boiled along side a crop of winter vegetables. As promised in an earlier post, here it is, well Part I at least. For this post I'll talk a little about these classic regional dishes, notably the different names given to each, as well as the differences in their ingredients and preparation. Both dishes are a derivative of "Corned Beef and Cabbage", a dish associated with Ireland. While New England Boiled Dinner has not wavered much from the original, Newfoundland's version, faithfully called Jiggs Dinner, is a little more unique.

It is generally agreed these days that the name Jiggs Dinner, referring to the common Newfoundland meal of salt beef (or salt pork spare ribs), boiled vegetables and steamed pudding got its name from the popular comic strip "Bringing Up Father", which began back in the early 1900s. In that comic, the main character was an Irish lad named Jiggs, whose favorite meal was corned beef and cabbage. While the Newfoundland version does not have corned beef, but instead uses a fattier cut of trimmed naval beef (cured), the similarities were obviously close enough that the label of Jiggs Dinner stuck somewhere along the way and became entrenched in Newfoundland food lore.

Besides being called Jiggs Dinner, Newfoundlander's also call this dish consisting of slat meat, cabbage, potatoes, carrot, yellow turnip (actually rutabaga) turnip greens, and pudding (yellow split pea is most common, but a blueberry or figgy duff is also traditional), boiled dinner, and salt meat dinner. For my family, and like many other from across the province, this meal was often accompanied with a roasted piece of meat (chicken stuffed with savory and onion dressing, pork or beef) and served on Sunday's...every Sunday! Traditional condiments for the meal include mustard pickles and pickled beets. For this meal of the extra fresh meat and delicious gravy, the term Jiggs Dinners may be dropped and replaced by "cooked dinner" or "Sunday Dinner". Finally, it is quite important to cook plenty so there are ample leftovers for hash on Monday! Somewhere along the way in history, Newfoundland became associated with the fatty cut of trimmed naval beef we know as "salt meat" instead of the leaner and meatier corned beef. It probably had much to do with price and the relationship between what merchants made available to Newfoundland outport fisherman and also to what would last the longest in the brine. Most Newfoundlander's though do not seem to mind and are "salt beef junkies" through and through.

Moving south to New England, or "the Boston States" as often refereed to back in the day by Newfoundlanders and Maritimers alike, the traditional boiled dinner consists of corned beef (usually brisket, either a flat cut or point cut piece, but also a cut of round) and many of the same winter vegetables, notably cabbage, potatoes, carrots, turnip, parsnips and beets. What we don't see are the use of steamed puddings, roasted meat and gravy does not get paired with the meal, and a new range of condiments are used to accompany the meal.

Here is a comparison breakdown:
Newfoundland Jiggs Dinner .............. New England Boiled Dinner

Meat

Salt Beef (trimmed naval beef) .....................Corned Beef
or Salt Pork Spare Ribs ..................................(flat cut/point cut brisket/round)

Veggies

Cabbage ..........................................................Cabbage
Potatoes (often blue spuds) .........................Potatoes
Carrot.............................................................. Carrot
Rutabaga .........................................................Turnip
Turnip (Rutabaga) Greens ...........................Parsnip
Onion ...............................................................Onion
...........................................................................Beets
...........................................................................Brussel Sprouts

Side Dishes

Pease Pudding (Yellow Split Peas)
Figgy Duff
Blueberry Duff
Bread Pudding
Potato Cakes with salt pork belly
Roast of chicken, pork or beef
Savory Dressing

Condiments

Pickled Beets ....................................................Grainy Mustard
Mustard Pickles ...............................................Mustard Pickles
Gravy ................................................................Vinegar
.............................................................................Horseradish


So there it is, the differences between Jiggs Dinner and New England Boiled Dinner. This past Sunday I made my own version of these dishes, a bit of a fusion between the two. I have fallen in love with corned beef. While I've always loved the flavor salt beef put on this meal, I've always thought it to be too fatty and not meaty enough for my taste. Corned beef fits the bill and makes for some awesome hash, not to mention Reuben sandwiches.

Stay tuned as I'll be posting a write up of that delicious meal in the next day or two. Here's a picture to tide you over.

1 comment:

  1. you do have a very interesting site. love the recipes to.

    i would like to contact you personally about your recipes...

    you can reach me at www.saltjunk.com or kevin@saltjunk.com

    Kevin J Phillips

    ReplyDelete

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