Edith and John Matheson

Hot Butter, Cold Lobster 22
Chow-Chow 25
Seafood Chowder 26
Grilled Beef Tongue 29
Grilled Oysters 32
Mussels and Garden Vegetables with Aïoli 34
Fried Clams 37
Lobster Roll 38
Lobster Pie 41
Prince Edward Island Seafood and Steaks 42
Hot Turkey Sandwich 47
Porterhouse 48
Bar Clams 51
Wild Blueberries and Cream 52
Molasses Bread Pudding 55

MATHESON'S MEAT MARKET

The Matheson family has been on PEI since the late 1700s. Grampy was raised in Rose Valley on a homestead that is still in the Matheson family today. He was the ninth of ten siblings. He was a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, also known as the Mounties. Grampy often went out on patrol with his dogs for thirty days or more at a time, surviving on what he could kill and carry on his dogsled. Nanny Edie was a Newfoundlander, born in Newfoundland. Like many from that time, Edie was very skilled at making food from the land, and the unique dishes of Newfoundland were carried forward by my dad in the form of salt-cod and Jiggs dinners.

Nanny and Grampy were both great cooks and used a lot of locally sourced meat, such as seal, caribou, ptarmigan, duck, sea trout, and whatever else they could get their hands on. Nanny's favorite wild game was porcupine! After a twenty-year career, Grampy retired from the RCMP at the age of thirty-nine. Grampy and Nanny then decided to move to Woodstock, New Brunswick, to buy a farm and start a slaughterhouse with a retail and wholesale meat store. Grampy added a commercial-size smoker to the operation, and they began smoking ham and bacon; homemade smoked meat was always in the cooler for delicious sandwiches. He also made his own sausages and a variety of charcuterie, like headcheese and blood pudding. They also had a massive garden, where they grew every vegetable imaginable, more than enough for their family and many of their neighbors.

Nanny and Grampy were very social people and would often have parties at the farm, where they would cook some of their specialties, like roast stuffed beef heart, beef tongue, sweetbreads, oxtail terrine, and potted meats, along with game such as deer, moose, bear, rabbit, duck, and goose. A lot of their friends had not experienced true Canadian food, so these events became legendary, and an invitation was highly sought after. They would start around eight in the evening and run until the next morning, with Nanny playing the piano and Grampy on his accordion, and others would bring fiddles and guitars, harmonicas, and the spoons.

Grampy was very entrepreneurial but would never admit it. In addition to owning the meat market, he was a skilled beekeeper. He typically had ten to fifteen active hives and sold a lot of honey. Nanny and Grampy had a sugar bush and made maple syrup for friends and family. They made cider from the apples of their orchard — five different types of apples grew there. They made plum jam, cranberry sauce, blueberry jam, and blackberry jelly from the wild fruits on their farm. Not to mention the pickles — mustard, sweet mixed, chow-chow, dill, pickled beets. Fall was a very busy time. Nanny and Grampy loved to make these kinds of staples, and there was always enough to give away and to last until next fall. Nanny Matheson passed away when I was young, so we never really got to know her, but by all accounts, she was fun, smart, hardworking, and a great cook.

Eventually, Grampy sold Matheson's Meat Market with the intention of retiring on PEI. But he had to be busy, so he bought a restaurant that had been closed for five years. The Blue Goose in DeSable, down the road from Crapaud, a small village of three hundred people on the side of the Trans-Canada Highway, originally opened in 1947. Grampy made almost everything from scratch and used all local produce and meats. His breads and rolls were legendary, such that he opened a small bakery section so people could buy some to take home. Grampy's chowders were so popular that people would drive across the island to get them. The menu would change by season, and in the first few years he would close for three months during the winter. This caused hardship for some of his employees, so he started staying open year-round; even though he made no money in the off-season, the people who depended on the restaurant could work and make a living. That's the kind of guy he was.

When he passed away in 2005, so many people came by the house before and after to relay stories of how Grampy had fed anyone who needed it, that everyone who experienced a loss or sickness in their family would get a full-on turkey dinner with all the fixings dropped off. He cared about his community, and people knew it by his actions. That's probably why he was so successful as a police officer, a butcher, and a restaurant owner, not to mention a wonderful grandfather.

Hot Butter, Cold Lobster

SERVES: 4

PREP TIME: 30 MINUTES

Salt water

4 (1 ½ to 2-pound/680 to 910 g) lobsters

Ice bath (water, salt, and 5 to 6 [10-pound/4.5 kg] bags of ice)

Unsalted butter

Growing up in the Maritimes was a beautiful thing. Living on any coast has massive benefits: the air, the beaches, the forests that surround them, the rivers that flow into the ice-cold salty water. What kid wouldn't love that landscape and terrain to run wild in?

There is nothing better than eating fresh lobster caught off the Northumberland Strait. The sweetness of this crustacean is pure mouth, heart, and mind joyfulness. When we would go to Prince Edward Island and my parents and Grampy would come back from the wharf with freshly boiled and chilled lobsters, we knew it was gonna be a long night of eating until we were sick of eating lobster!

I love cold lobster. I dislike hot lobster. I wanna hate it, but I still love lobster so much it's impossible to hate. I just feel that warm lobster takes away from the real experience of eating it.

In this recipe, you want that perfectly cooked lobster hit with warm melted butter. Cooking lobster is not that difficult, and you should always, always, always be careful to never, ever overcook it. You want the meat medium when you take it out of the boiling salted water. You don't want it to be translucent, and you don't want it to be overcooked and chewy. I find that boiling it for 8 minutes per pound is best. The ice bath is very important; it helps the meat release from the shell. Also, remember to salt your ice bath to really make sure that lobster is treated and chilled perfectly.

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Set a large pot on your burner. If you have access to an outdoor propane burner, use that. If you don't have sea water for boiling, use ¼ cup (55 g) sea salt for each 1 (3.8 L) gallon water.

Bring the water to a boil and add the lobsters one at a time. Make sure you remove the rubber bands from the claws just before you put them in the pot. Usually, I flip the critters over and lower them headfirst into the water. Cover the pot;...