Newfoundland seal hits the spot for Granville chef
While Dine Out Vancouver celebrates its 15th year, Eric Pateman at Edible Canada wanted to offer something special in honour of Canada’s 150th birthday. He settled on seal meat. “It’s a true Canadian delicacy,” Pateman said over a plate of Newfoundland seal pappardelle with a side of seal loin at his Granville Island restaurant, where he is executive chef and president.
“We always want a story around for Dine Out, something historic and cultural, something uniquely Canadian, but also something that’s important in today’s world such as sustainability.”
Two years ago, for example, the restaurant offered Rocky Mountain oysters, also known as lamb testicles.
The rest of Edible Canada’s Dine Out menu this year includes, in part, grilled Alberta lamb hearts and rangeland bison tartare as appetizers, Prairie farrow risotto and Quebec rabbit for entrées, and a choice of desserts. The menu is prix fixe, plus another $3 if you want to have the seal loin with your pasta and ground seal sauce.
The seal entrée comes with guanciale (Italian cured pork cheek), tomato meat sauce, chili and marjoram. The seal meat is ground Bolognaise-style in the sauce.
Pateman knows serving seal meat is controversial in some corners and has hired security for when Dine Out opens on Friday evening.
Killing the pups commercially for their white fur hasn’t been legal in Canada for 30 years and clubs are no longer used, replaced by hunting rifles. The hunt is regulated by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
The seals on the menu, harvested for their skins and fur, range in age from a month old to a year, Pateman said. If the meat isn’t eaten, it rots or is thrown out.
“Seals are one of the first animals hunted in this country,” he said. “And the seal hunt still has relevance in the North and on the East Coast.”
Pateman was introduced to seal meat six years ago in Montreal, sampling several cuts, organs and preparations.
“I was impressed by how much protein there was,” he said. “The tartare was fantastic.
“Eating it raw is still my personal favourite way of enjoying the meat.”
For six months Pateman and chef Tobias Grignon experimented: seal tacos, seal sushi, seal curry.
“It lends itself very well to a variety of preparations,” Pateman said.
They settled on pappardelle as something the average consumer would recognize.
“What’s more approachable than pasta and meat sauce?”
So, approaching the seal sirloin first on Tuesday, I found it pleasant if hard to place the taste (gamy, perhaps, but just a hint so). The texture of the medium-rare slices was not unlike beef tenderloin, or certain sashimi.
Pateman describes it as ahi tuna meets moose.
Then the pappardelle with its seal-meat sauce, it was delicious.
I gave both my seal of approval.