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Cook this: Ptarmigan with wild greens and sautéed cranberries from Food, Culture, Place

'These birds may be the most treasured game in all of Newfoundland,' says Lori McCarthy

Oct 27, 2021 • October 29, 2021 • 3 minute read • Join the conversation

Ptarmigan with wild greens and sautéed cranberries from Food, Culture, Place. Photo by Marsha Tulk

Our cookbook of the week is Food, Culture, Place: Stories, Traditions and Recipes of Newfoundland by Lori McCarthy and Marsha Tulk. Over the next two days, we'll feature another recipe from the book and an interview with the authors.

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To try another recipe from the book, check out: Lori's great-grandmother's gingerbread and drunken mussels.

Chunky, white-winged ptarmigans — tundra- and treeline-dwelling birds belonging to the grouse family — are treasured game in Newfoundland, says Lori McCarthy. But they weren't always held in such high esteem as a food source.

"It was the poverty food of this place," says the founder of culinary excursion company Cod Sounds . "There's a lot of shame around food here. And sometimes the foods that you ate, you were embarrassed that you ate it — lobster included. Like in my grandfather's town, they'd never tell anyone they'd had lobster. It was the poor kids that would have lobster sandwiches in school."

Attitudes toward game have since shifted, McCarthy adds. No longer viewed as a stopgap until you could afford to buy other meats, now people value them. "We go to Italy and we go to France, and we eat the poverty food of these places. And now it's so appreciated, so it's the same kind of thing."

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Traditionally, Newfoundlanders oven-roasted stuffed ptarmigan and served it with gravy on the side. McCarthy sought to give it a different treatment in this dish, searing the ptarmigan (or duck) breast, slicing it thinly and drizzling with cranberry sauce.

Ptarmigan meat is similar to duck, McCarthy explains, but it tastes and smells of where it comes from: the forest floor, strewn with berries.

Cook this: Lori's great-grandmother's gingerbread from Food, Culture, Place
Cook this: Drunken mussels from Food, Culture, Place
'Alive with food stories': Lori McCarthy and Marsha Tulk on the tastes and traditions of Newfoundland

Since McCarthy's hometown of Bauline isn't "birding ground," ptarmigan wasn't commonplace when she was growing up. But it's since become one of her favourite game meats.

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"I have the same love for it as I did growing up eating it. I appreciate that I still get to do it, and I still get to hunt it," she says.

"I caught me a ptarmigan last week. And the fact that … I could still strap on my gun and go out on the Barrens and take an animal to eat that day — if you don't appreciate that, there's something wrong with you, (as) my grandfather would say."

Food, Culture, Place: Stories, Traditions and Recipes of Newfoundland by Lori McCarthy and Marsha Tulk — In Food, Culture, Place, Lori McCarthy and Marsha Tulk take readers on a year-long journey collecting, cooking and eating in Newfoundland. Photo by Boulder Books

PTARMIGAN WITH WILD GREENS AND SAUTÉED CRANBERRIES

1 breast of ptarmigan (duck breast can be substituted, but remove skin)
Sea salt
Black pepper, freshly ground
4 tbsp butter, salted, divided
2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup frozen cranberries
1/2 tsp sweet gale or fresh rosemary
1/4 cup red wine

STEP 1

Salt and pepper the meat well on both sides. Heat the frying pan to medium high and add 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons olive oil. Give the meat a quick sear, turning just once, 1 to 2 minutes per side for ptarmigan (2 to 3 minutes per side for duck). Remove the seared meat from the pan and set aside on a plate to rest while you prepare the cranberries.

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STEP 2

Reserve a few cranberries to add later. Add the rest of the berries to the frying pan. Season with a pinch of pepper. Add the sweet gale and wine. Bring to a boil just for a moment. Break the cranberries with a fork. Whisk in 2 tablespoons butter and let the sauce reduce by half.

STEP 3

To plate, slice the meat thin against the grain and arrange slices flat on a plate. Drizzle with a few tablespoons of the cranberry sauce, add some sliced berries, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle on a little sea salt and fresh cracked pepper.

Recipe and image excerpted from Food, Culture, Place: Stories, Traditions and Recipes of Newfoundland by Lori McCarthy and Marsha Tulk. Published by Boulder Books. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

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