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published by McArthur & Company
Stog Yer Gob with Prog
Or, stuff your mouth with food—the kindly order a guest might have heard from a rough-and-ready but hospitable bayman as he invited you to sit down to a Newfoundland outport meal, late in the last century.
His wife might have added, "Make a long arm now." That is, help yourself. You can take a man out of the bay, but you can't take the bay out of the man, runs the island proverb.
Maybe that's why, however far from home Newfoundlanders must roam to earn their daily bread, they never forget it: the daily bread their mothers baked, with the extra treat of damper dogs—wads of bread dough fried quickly on the lid (damper) of a hot wood stove, usually a treat for children, who were fed the damper dogs or damper devils so they wouldn't gobble up all the fresh-baked bread.
Lassy Mogs
Lassy and lasses are common short forms for molasses on the island. Mogs are small cakes made of flour, baking powder, butter, salt, etc. When sweetened with molasses instead of sugar, they are, of course, lassy mogs. Mog may derive from a British dialect verb that meant "to go slowly" because the little cakes rose slowly when baked. But Mog and Moggy were also dialect nicknames for Margaret in certain rural areas of the British Isles, so these cakes may simply be lassy Margarets.
Or—the origin I think most likely—mogs may have been made at first by stamping out the dough with a cutter consisting of an empty mug turned upside down.
A few years after I introduced the term "lassy mogs" to Canadians "from away" in my book Canadian Food Words, the President's Choice folks came up with a commercial version of these cookies.
That's the packaging above, and here is some of the ad copy written by President's Choice copywriters:
"In an earlier era in Atlantic Canada, the "lassy mog" was a classic home-baked treat. Its charming name is derived from the local dialect for the region's widely used sweetener, molasses ("lass") and small, low-rising cake ("mog"). Intrigued by the name and inspired by the wholesome ingredients used, we created the PC Lassy Mog cookie - a soft, irresistible treat with a rich, homemade taste. Made with butter, dates, raisins, molasses, pecans and a blend of spices.
Pratie Oatens
The Irish Gaelic word for potato is práta, and immigrants from Ireland brought this dish to Newfoundland. Pratie oatens were mashed potatoes mixed with oatmeal, formed into little cakes, and fried in bacon or sausage fat.
Scrunchins
A juicy, salivant lip-licker of a word, scrunchings or scruncheons or cruncheons are fried cubes of fat-back pork, sprinkled over fish and brewis, or served as accompaniments to many other dishes. Scrunchins also refer to pieces of any fish or animal fat after the oil has been extracted from them.
Squatum
A term invented by Newfoundlanders, squatum is homemade berry wine, made by crushing wild fruit like blueberries or partridgeberries, adding sugar, and letting it ferment.
The word arose from a verb no longer used in standard English, a dialect verb, to squat, that meant to squeeze, crush, or flatten. The verb disappeared from standard English early in the 18th century, but not before immigrants using it had come to Newfoundland, where it has been kept alive and useful as part of islanders' unique vocabulary.
If the squatum made from local berries does not seem potent enough after fermenting, there is no harm in adding a splash of grain alcohol to the mix, no harm at all—until one attempts to board a tippy vessel next morning. Of course, author Henry Fielding in his novel Tom Jones answers that caveat when one of his characters offers this observation: "It is said strong drink weakens a man. And so it will—in a weak man."
Any comments, corrections, emendations, additional word lore, orders for my books?
Please email me at wordguy@shaw.ca
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