G! Eats: Chowder Wars

All’s fair in love and seafood chowder, right? G! Eats resident foodie Christina Flemming investigates, one delicious bowl at a time

 

Seafood chowder is a lot like pizza.

My five year-old self is pinching her nose at the thought of comparing pizza with food that smells like the ocean, but I’m really making that comparison. When it comes to pizza, some people are fierce about thick doughy crust, there are thin crust fanatics and some will eat anything smothered in melted cheese and bacon. Seafood chowder, believe it or not, is just as diverse.

There are the thick creamy chowders that you could almost walk across, then there are thin, almost ethereal chowders, not to mention smoky corn-laced bowls and the blushing tomato-based variety. Granted, you don’t usually order chowder by phone and have a kid deliver it in thirty minutes or less, but the contents of the chowder are as diverse as the toppings on your pizza.

The contestants who compete in the PEI International Shellfish Chowder Championship—a fierce chowder war held every September in Charlottetown—can select ingredients from a list of PEI seafood which includes: PEI flounder, haddock, cod, hake, bar clams, soft shell clams, oysters, cultivated mussels, quahogs, lobster, scallops, halibut, salmon, rock crab and snow crab.

If you grew up eating grandma’s creamy seafood chowder brimming with lobster and scallops every Christmas Eve, you might not be so receptive to a milk-based version. If you’re from Bermuda (though I suspect my readership from this region may be slightly limited), you might find the pale North American chowder boring because you’re accustomed to a dark rich seafood chowder made with browned or burnt sugar. And I won’t even get into the love the people of Maine have for clam “chowdah.”

Even Herman Melville teaches us about chowder diversity in Moby Dick: “Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved its name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes.” And after Ishmael polishes off his clam chowder, he orders a bowl of cod chowder, “In a few moments the savoury steam came forth again, but with a different flavour.”

Back in 2007, the winning seafood chowder at the PEI International Shellfish Festival was titled, “Just Like Dad’s Seafood Chowder” and it consisted of scallops with lobster ravioli in a creamy broth spiked with a shot of Triple Sec. On the other hand, the 2011 champion, Chef Aaron Ferrill of The Selkirk located in the Delta Prince Edward, took first place with a thin chowder comprised of haddock, shrimp and scallops. The winner of the chowder championship gets $2,000 and the right to use the 2011 International Chowder Championship Seal on their menu. While many restaurants claim to have “award-winning seafood chowder,” the Selkirk really does. There is a poster in the Delta elevator announcing this fact and, of course, the menu reinforces that this chowder is a “Winner.” I recently visited the Delta to see if this award-winning chowder would live up to the hype.

The chowder is served as an appetizer and the portion size is befitting. It comes to the table in a small egg-shaped white bowl, without any accoutrements—no Parker House Rolls or biscuits to be found. One might describe it as the Victoria Beckham of seafood chowders—the broth is exceedingly thin and the presentation is posh and impeccable. Two wafer-thin strips of fried potato float amid a frothed surface. There is a nice contrast between the light broth and the ample chunks of fish but one cannot help but yearn for a bit more seasoning. It’s akin to a low-fat latte version of seafood chowder; a pleasing dish if you like something light and frothy before dinner.

Not quite ready to end my chowder tour, I head to Gahan House. Granted, there cannot be a comparison made between the Gahan Seafood Chowder and The Selkirk’s as they are different genres. The Gahan chowder comes in a huge bowl—though listed under “half pints,” this is no appetizer portion. The chowder is thick like a velvet curtain and eating it is like successfully panning for gold because there are so many chunks of lobster, plump mussels, pieces of haddock and scallops. Wisps of sweet onion provide the chowder with texture, while miniscule dots of chive punch up the flavour. It’s served topped with thin strips of fried potato and accompanied by a small biscuit. This is chowder your grandmother and your boyfriend will love.

After two consecutive bowls of chowder, I look for fish bones coming through my dress but then, feeling sleepy, think back to the inn keeper’s words to Ishmael and his friend as they go to bed, “The chowder; clam or cod to-morrow for breakfast, men?”

All’s fair in love and seafood chowder, right? G! Eats resident foodie Christina Flemming investigates, one delicious bowl at a time   Seafood chowder is a lot like pizza. My five year-old self is pinching her nose at the thought of comparing pizza with food that smells like the ocean, but I’m really making that [...]

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Myth: All I need to do to warm-up before I workout is walk on the treadmill

The Myth and The Madness

Ryan Cairns CSEP-CPT dispels the myths of fitness and sets us straight on the path to looking (and feeling) good

Warm ups are an essential part of any workout. Whether you are going to lift weights, run sprints, or prepare for a sport, you have to warm up PROPERLY.

Let’s look at the big no-nos people do while they’re at the gym – are you guilty of any of the following?

The “No Warm Up” Warm-up:
Thinks warming up will hurt workout performance.

Problem: A warm up is never a waste of time. A proper warm up will always enhance your workout and give you better gains or results, or however you measure your successes. It will also help keep you injury-free. If you don’t make time for pre-hab, you will have to make time for rehab.

The Fix: Think of the warm up as part of the main part of your workout and not something to do before it. If you build it into the time you have allotted for yourself, it will feel less like a pain in the butt.

The Phantom:
Walks into the gym, heads straight to the bench press and immediately starts lifting their maximum weights.

Problem: They haven’t warmed up their joints or their muscles to safely handle the load.

The Fix: Do joint mobility. Think back to grade school gym class – rolling your shoulders, bouncing your arms across your chest and then out to the sides, drawing circles in the air with your arms. The purpose is warm up your joints by getting synovial fluid to lubricate them. Try muscle activation as well – if you’re about to bench press, you may want to do some push-ups or resistance bands chest presses. If you are going to start with bench presses, start at 60 percent of what you are going to lift and work your way up to your maximum weight.

The Walker:
Walks to the gym thinking they’re already warmed up.

Problem: This would be a good warm up if you plan to do more walking at the gym or a light jog. As humans, we should be able to walk long distances and not really have that be considered a workout. It just isn’t very vigorous.

The Fix: Try doing jumping jacks, skipping rope, high knees, or some other vigorous activity.

The Jogger:
Hops on the treadmill and jogs at a light pace for about five minutes, just long enough to break a sweat.

Problem: This is slightly better than “The Walker,” but it still only offers a small range of motion for the body. The knees and hips don’t bend that much and you are only moving forward. This constant forward motion can lead to tight hips.

The Fix: Warm up by moving through multiple planes. Do lateral (side to side), diagonal, and perhaps even backwards movements in your warm up. Do full ranges of motions. Instead of the treadmill, opt for squats, step-ups, or something else that gets the joints bending in a deep range.

The Stretcher:
Holds static stretches pre-workout.

Problem: If you’re going to do strength training or a performance-based workout, don’t hold static stretches beforehand. I’ll be talking at length about this in next month’s column.

The Fix: Stop doing the static stretches BEFORE your workout and check out the bodyweight tabata warm up at the end of this article.

There is no universal warm up. Warm ups should be specific to the activities that you are about to perform. The first thing I teach all of my clients is how to do a warm up that will benefit them the most. Here is a quick warm up that works pretty well for a full body workout.

Body Weight Tabata

Perform 20 seconds of exercise followed by 10 seconds of joint mobility. Do this in eight sets (total warm-up time: 4 minutes)

Set One: Jumping Jacks and Arm Circles
Set Two: Body Weight Squats and Left Leg Circles
Set Three: Jumping Jacks and Right Leg Circles
Set Four: Push-Ups and Shoulder Rolls
Set Five: Jumping Jacks and Arm Circles
Set Six: Hip Lifts and Left Leg Circles
Set Seven: Jumping Jacks and Right Leg Circles
Set Eight: Plank and swing both arms out to the side and then cross them in front of your chest

Remember: This is just a warm up, so you don’t go at it with 100 percent intensity, but you can bet you’ll definitely be warm afterwards.

Now go warm up and kill that next workout!

Yours in fitness and wellness,

Ryan Cairns CSEP-CPT

For more workout tips, videos, and more, check out Ryan’s website www.sparkfitnessnow.com.

The Myth and The Madness Ryan Cairns CSEP-CPT dispels the myths of fitness and sets us straight on the path to looking (and feeling) good Warm ups are an essential part of any workout. Whether you are going to lift weights, run sprints, or prepare for a sport, you have to warm up PROPERLY. Let’s [...]

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Myth: Having a pet will make you a fitter person

The Myth and The Madness

Ryan Cairns CSEP-CPT dispels the myths of fitness and sets us straight on the path to looking (and feeling) good

 

Ah, pets…our furry friends. Most people love animals, though not everyone wants to own one. Having a pet is a lot of responsibility. Pets can be messy, they can destroy things, and if we’re being honest, they can be a pain in the backside. But pets can also show us love, affection, and can be really funny additions to the family. There are definitely “pet people” and “non-pet people”, but does having a pet qualify someone as being more fit than a non-pet owner?

We can look at this a few different ways. Canada’s Physical Activity Guideline says that adults should do moderate to vigorous activities for 150 minutes a week. That’s only 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week! We know that a lot of Canadians aren’t even close to getting that much exercise. Enter the dog.

Dogs need to be walked everyday. My dog gets so excited it almost runs through the door every time I grab the leash. Taking your pet for a brisk walk is a great way to get your required daily exercise. A 2011 Michigan State University study revealed that people with pets were 60% more likely to get the recommended amount of physical activity than people without pets.

It would appear that this myth is busted, but wait! There are a lot of overweight pets out there. In fact, there is an estimated 90+ million overweight or obese pets in North America. This is a combination of lack of exercise and overeating; not so different from the same problems that humans face. So, if you and Fido want to live a longer, healthier life together, try these tips.

Walking
Don’t think of taking your pet for a walk as a chore – look at it as a chance for both of you to get some exercise. Choose a distance you’re comfortable with and time how long it takes you to get there and back. On your next walk, increase your speed and try to beat your previous time. Pick different routes to keep from getting bored.

Fetch

Throw a stick, ball, or Frisbee to your dog. When they run to get it, do as many squats as you can before they get back. Next time, do as many sit-ups, and so on. You can just insert any exercise to make up any circuit you want.

Fetch race
Next time you throw something for you dog to retrieve, instead of letting him get it and bring it back to you, try to race him for it. That’ll really get your heart rate up!

Flashlight game
Don’t think I forgot about the cat lovers out there! Try standing at least six feet away from a wall with a flashlight in your hand. Start doing squats and watch Garfield go nuts as you make the light move up and down on the wall. You can switch things up with sit-ups, planks, or any activity you can do while holding a flashlight

Does having a pet make you a fitter person? It should, but that isn’t a guarantee. So try these tips and you just might find that both ends of the leash lose inches. A wise man once said, “If your pet is fat, YOU aren’t getting enough exercise.”

Yours in fitness and wellness,

Ryan Cairns CSEP-CPT (and Pet Enthusiast)

For workouts, fitness tips, and more, check out Ryan’s website www.sparkfitnessnow.com.

The Myth and The Madness Ryan Cairns CSEP-CPT dispels the myths of fitness and sets us straight on the path to looking (and feeling) good   Ah, pets…our furry friends. Most people love animals, though not everyone wants to own one. Having a pet is a lot of responsibility. Pets can be messy, they can [...]

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