Acadian New Year's Eve tradition means 'no lack of money.'

 Acadian sisters on December 31, 2020, Tracadie, New Brunswick

If you have been fortunate in life to have a best friend from an Acadian community in the Maritimes, Canada, then you may have been the beneficiary of their traditional meals cooked for you on many occasions. My best friend comes from Tracadie and moved back to Moncton about three years ago, after living in Ontario. We have worked together and stayed friends since that fall she arrived in Toronto in 1987. 

To learn about people is to know something of their generations-long traditions in cooking. But understand, there are things that go with cooking that define these traditions. On a telephone call to her this week, I asked how her New Year's Eve went. Living in New Brunswick is a better place to live during this pandemic than many other places like my own province and city. There are so few cases of covid-19 in New Brunswick, compared to Ontario, that it seems another world away. This year I feel worlds apart, and more so when I listened to her tell me about how she and her sisters celebrated New Year’s Eve 2020. 

My year ended in Ontario with a full Lockdown mandated by the provincial government. Non-essential businesses were closed, and making-due ‘without’ is as common as social distancing and mask-wearing. I worked for a large market over twenty years and it closed permanently on December 26th, not able to sustain their business through another lockdown from the early pandemic closure from March to May in the spring 2020. It was my best friend’s story that lit my imagination again, and the candle illuminating a life long ago that still lives today in the hearts and lives of the Acadian-Maritime community my friend lives in. 

Tracadie is on the northeast ocean front of New Brunswick, where the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Atlantic ocean converge behind Prince Edward Island. Settlers from France are where the unique ways come from in this area of the Maritimes in Canada. A bigger and interesting story about the Acadians, and this short story about how they have kept their independent ways and traditions, as a group of people. The radio station is French-speaking in her sister's home. That night, on New Year’s Eve, three sisters met to prepare herring, potatoes and listen to the radio. 

Shopping for salted herring in the days before New Years eve is purposeful. Their regular shop did not have the salted herring they needed, and offered a jar of pickled herring, she laughed. No, no. They would return a few days later when the salted herring was in stock, which it was. That evening they boiled the water in the pot, each putting her three herring in and letting it boil, then rinse and refill the pot with fresh water, boil again, rinse and refill the pot to boil a third time to dilute the salt in the fish. 

Before, she explained, there were no fridges and so the fish was salted to preserve it, this since the 1600s. After three times boiling their fish, it is still salty but ready to eat. The potatoes were boiled and dinner served around 10:30 pm. They saluted that eating their herring meant there would be “no lack of money” in 2021. To be doubly sure that this was true, they decided to eat more herring at exactly midnight, as well. They would take no chances, she laughed.

That evening, my friend and her two sisters, sat by the radio listening to the music but also to the announcements, in French. The week before this radio New Year’s Eve show, friends and family from across Canada called in, emailed in and text messaged their greetings to their Tracadie listeners. Each person’s name in their family is spoken over the air with a personal message from the sender. They even called in themselves to send greetings to others, and heard their own messages spoken to those special people, on the radio. 

Does this strike you like it does me? Personal, intimate, warm and meaningful? I felt a part of their celebration, and will send in my own message at year's end to her, in French, next time. 

By Kathie Vanular