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Photo DAVID HOLT from London, England, CC BY-SA 2.0

Fish and brewis

Salt fish and hard bread with scrunchions: the old Newfoundland meal made from food that keeps without a fridge.

What you need

How

  1. The night before, put the salt fish in a pot of cold water, skin side up, and the hard bread in another pot of cold water. Keep both cold.
  2. Change the water on the fish a few times. Taste a flake: when it is salty but pleasant, it is ready.
  3. Next day, drain the fish, cover it with fresh water and bring it to a simmer. Cook it until it flakes, about 15 to 20 minutes, then drain it.
  4. Bring the bread to a boil in its soaking water and take it off as soon as it is soft all through. Drain it right away. Boiled too long it goes to paste.
  5. Dice the salt pork small and fry it slowly until the pieces are crisp and brown. Those are the scrunchions.
  6. Pick the skin and bones out of the fish and break it up. Serve the fish and the brewis together with the scrunchions and a bit of their fat poured over.
  7. Mash it all together and it is fisherman's brewis. Same meal, different plate.

Do and don't

Do
  • Break big cakes of hard bread into pieces before you soak them.
  • Make extra. It fries up the next morning in the pan.
  • Bring hard bread and salt fish to the cabin or camp. Neither needs a fridge until it is soaked.
Don't
  • Do not skip the soak on the fish. Unsoaked salt fish is too salty to eat.
  • Do not leave soaking fish on a warm counter overnight. Keep it in the fridge or a cold porch.
  • Do not boil the brewis hard or long.

Watch for

Danger
  • Salt fish that smells off, feels slimy or shows pink or red patches has spoiled. Throw it out.
  • Salt cod keeps its fine bones. Feel for them as you break the fish up.
  • Hot pork fat spits. Keep the pan handle turned in and the pan away from children.

Notes

Brewis is said brews. It was boat and woods food long before it was a treat: fish that kept for months and bread that kept longer.

See Salting and drying fish, The boil up and One pot meals.

salt fishhard breadcodnewfoundland

Updated 2026-09-29

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