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flipper pie
DCHP-2 (Oct 2016)
Spelling variants:flipper-pie, seal flipper pie, seal-flipper pie
n. — Newfoundland, Food
a meat pie made with the flippers of young harp seals (see Images 1 and 2).
Type: 1. Origin — A traditional dish of Newfoundland, flipper pie combines the flipper meat of young harp seals, salt pork, potatoes and a pastry crust (Colombo 1976: 476). It is typically eaten in early to mid-spring, when the first seal hunts are conducted (see the 1956 quotation). The term appears most frequently in Canada (see Chart 1).
See also COD-2, s.v. "flipper pie", which is marked "Cdn (Nfld)", ITP Nelson, s.v. "flipper pie", which is marked "Newfoundland", and DNE, s.v. "flipper".
See also COD-2, s.v. "flipper pie", which is marked "Cdn (Nfld)", ITP Nelson, s.v. "flipper pie", which is marked "Newfoundland", and DNE, s.v. "flipper".
Quotations
1907
Two well known citizens chatted with us on the front seat; one of them remarked that he had hoped on yesterday to enjoy a flipper pie for his dinner to-day.
1937
Several of the party spent a very pleasant evening with Mr. and Mrs. "Glad" Burt at their residence in Earls Court. Here we enjoyed a supper of flipper pie, which had been rescued from the left luggage room at Euston Station.
1942
To keep up the morale of Newfoundland troops, an American declares, it is only necessary to supply them with flipper pie. This, it appears, is a sort of concrete pill-box stuffed with the abbreviated fly-swatters the young seals use as paddles.
1956
Flipper Pie means seal flipper pie and is made from the fore-paws of flippers of the seal. In the spring when the first sealing ship comes down from "the ice" of Labrador or the Gulf with its hold packed with sealskins it will also carry some barrels of flippers for sale in St. John's. So eager are the customers that the first flippers sell for from $12 to $18 a dozen. Each cleaned flipper would weigh from 1/2 to 1 pound. [...] The meat is tender and tasty but you have to be born in Newfoundland to really appreciate it. Few mainlanders acquire a great liking for it but it isn't April in St. John's without at least one flipper pie.
1966
The family stayed for supper at the Crockers, and Mollie Crocker cooked cod tongues for them and made a seal-flipper pie. The cod tongues were fresh, but the seal flippers had been frozen in the winter when the seals were killed out on the ice.
1979
Fisheries Minister Walter Carter said yesterday the department is working with a St. John's company on several seal products, including TV dinners, flipper pies and vacuum-packaged meat.
1986
In fact, we were just in time for flipper pie baked with pastry and served with potatoes and carrots -- our first Newfoundland meal since the time we had salt beef and cabbage at Hamilton Ward's in Buffalo.
2004
This is done partly for trinkets and fur, and, as Newfoundlanders would say, for "flipper pie," but as we all know their horrendous deaths are a make-work program supposedly to protect fish stocks for human consumption.
References
- DNE
- ITP Nelson
- Colombo (1976)
- COD-2
Images
Image 1: A flipper pie. Photo: B. Ford
Image 2: A packaged flipper pie. Photo: B. Ford
