No, I’m not talking about dining on road kill, although Betty & I have seen our fair share of squished skunks, run-over raccoons, slimed squirrels, and other unidentifiable flattened furry things between Winnipeg and the east coast. I’m referring to what and how we eat as we travel the continent on our overlandish odyssey (oh oh!). BTW, oh oh is what the furry friends all said just before they got lost between the headlights…
I’ve been somewhat ambivalent about addressing this topic in our blog. On the one hand it seems rather narcissistic to post one’s meals on Facebook, or any other public medium. But on the other hand there are now dozens of television shows highlighting food and how it can be cooked. It’s a somewhat different experience gathering supplies and preparing meals on the road, so we thought our family and other readers might be interested in what’s cookin’ on our travels.
First, I guess it’s not uncommon for travellers like us to eat out more often. We hear and read about great restaurants across the continent where “you gotta eat”, and we do like to try local fare prepared well by local chefs. As an aside, Betty & I have had few regrets in our adventures, but we did miss out on visiting a restaurant in Souris, Prince Edward Island, owned and operated by one of Canada’s celebrity chefs, Michael Smith. It was too early in the day when we passed through Souris, and we weren’t sure the chef would be in if we waited on a possible reservation. Well, we’ll just have to better plan for that on another trip!
Each province so far has had notable restaurants, but three PEI locations stand out for great seafood: Clam Diggers in Cardigan had great muscles and seafood chowder; Sharky’s Seafood in Summerside had fabulous lobster rolls & fries, and was worth the return trip for a mixed seafood platter that was more than enough for Betty & me to share; and of course
the New Glasgow Lobster Supper, served up with enough fresh bread, salads and dessert to keep you going for a week. Honourable mention must also go to the Canadian Potato Museum for their french fries & stuffed potato skins. (I would expect our daughter, Lisa, to put this as number one on the list. LOL)
Unlike dinners prepared in our bricks ‘n sticks kitchen – especially after a full reno adding a 4’ x 8’ granite island – storage, prep and serving space in our motorhome is decidedly
less. OK, it also needs to be noted in this blog post that I’m talking mainly in the third person, as I am not usually the first person to prepare and serve our delicious meals. LOL. While limited storage is a negative, it also forces/allows us to stop more often for local fresh produce at roadside stands, fish markets, bakeries, butcher shops, and buy whatever else is in season, or a local specialty.
With much of this trip in the maritime provinces, a lot of our current menu is fresh seafood based. Usually locals tell us about the best outlets to pick up today’s catch, but yesterday’s lunch came from a different source: Sobeys. We had stopped in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia to pick up some basics, and got into a conversation with a staff member about our travels, and their large fresh catch section. When we mentioned our inability to cook lobster in our motorhome, he offered to pick out a couple of live lobsters from their tank and steam them for us while we waited. Betty & I had purchased the
necessary hardware for shell cracking and meat removal in PEI, so we ended up having a great lunch, right in the Sobeys parking lot!
As mentioned in a previous post, our solar system has allowed us to use all of our electrical outlets as we travel, and some of our best
meals have been clam and seafood chowders, slow-cooked while driving down the road, and ready to eat when we stopped for the day. Yum!
While seafood has been our main focus, we have also enjoyed the lamb sausage from Lismore Sheep Farm on the Northumberland Strait
in Nova Scotia. Of course from time to time I have to bbq a rib eye & prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, but lately we’ve been topping the steak with crab or lobster, for a surf ‘n turf presentation – because we can… This forces us to open both red & white wines to pair with the meal, but we’re never driving after that meal. LOL
Anyway, a lot more could be said
about good food, and the many delicious dishes we’ve sampled on our adventures. While we were on Manitoulin Island we saw many signs warning of deer crossings, and were informed that some didn’t make it across. Apparently it is not uncommon for locals to quickly harvest the road kill for a number of hearty meals. Betty & I have not ventured that far on our travels to date, but who knows what we’ll end up eating on the road.
Cheers!
