DCHP-2

fish and brewis DCHP-2 (October 2016)

• n. — Newfoundland, Food

  a dish of salt cod and hardtack, which is soaked in water and then fried or boiled (see Image 1).

  Type: 2. Preservation — This term, naming a traditional Newfoundland dish, is found almost exclusively in Canada (see Chart 1). The Dictionary of Newfoundland English cites it from 1766 (s.v. brewis). The term brewis is used to refer to 'bread soaked in boiling fat pottage, made of salted meat' (see OED-3, s.v. brewis, (2)). This dish is often served with scrunchions on top as a garnish (see Image 1 on the right). Note that the first quotation below from outside of Newfoundland dates from 1977.
  See also ITP Nelson, s.v. "fish and brewis", which is marked "Newfoundland", COD-2, which marks it "Cdn (Nfld)".

  See also: figgy duff  scrunchions (meaning 2)  

  • 1900  That on that very morning he had eaten a breakfast of fish and brewis as decently cooked as any Peter Parsing had ever sat down to, and therefore there was no uncleanness in him. 
  • 1916  And what does a Nfldr. find better to eat than fish and brewis? 
  • 1929  Well, my appetite is certainly much stronger than my nerves. What is this? (sniffing) fish and brewis. 
  • 1954  I greatly enjoyed fish and brewis, a typical Newfoundland dish, and even learned to adopt its typical Newfoundland pronunciation - fish-n-brooz. 
  • 1977  One cousin treated us to a Newfie traditional - fish and brewis. Salt cod is boiled until fresh enough to eat, hard tack is soaked until good and mushy, and the whole thing is smothered in liquid bacon fat. 
  • 1987  "It's called fish and brewis," he explained. "It's a traditional breakfast." 
  • 1999  "I carry it in my heart -- always," he smiles with no mild affection as he digs into a heavenly crab-stuffed fillet, or a traditional dish of Fish and Brewis made with stone-hard Purity biscuits that, for Newfoundlanders, are as ubiquitous on the coast as potatoes are on the mainland. 
  • 2006  It's easy to picture Nan in the kitchen, her back to us, as she peeled vegetables and prepared traditional Newfoundland fare: homemade bread, bakeapple jam, fish and brewis (salt cod, hardtack biscuit and fried salt pork) with scruncheons (fried pork fat), pea soup, jig's dinner and puddings with custard sauce. 
  • 2015  Another feature was an upscale version of fish and brewis, but even the Fogo Island Inn uses store bought hardtack bread, hard as oak. Some traditional things just can't be improved upon.