On Wednesday morning, we went with Jim and Lena to the Universite Sainte-Anne, Nova Scotia's only French university, which is just down the road from their cabin and has a little cafe and history exhibit. After breakfast and a quick swipe through, we headed down the road, stopping at a beautiful little provincial park beach before picking up the main highway again. Thanks to Lena, , we made a fortuitous detour and stop at Pubnico, where a living history museum of Acadian regional life was rather well-hidden. It was lunchtime and after we put our pin on the map ( only one from South Dakota since June), we were thrilled to find that the cafe served a traditional Acadian comfort food called Rappie Pie. We had seen it listed at the Roadside Grill as rapure but they didn't have any on Tuesday night. We tasted it and ordered it. A little went long way for me but Jim cleaned his plate. It is a very labor intensive dish. They grate potatoes, squeeze the water out of them, rehydrate them with the chicken broth from boiling the chicken for the dish, make a "cake" with it (add some pork fat)
and bake for 3 hours. The result ? A rather tapioca like substance with bits of meat throughout, reminding me of the texture of lutefisk but with chicken flavor instead of fish. Not offensive like lutefisk but fairly bland--and forget the molasses!
The museum had docents in every building who were dressed in period costumes and spun their stories as you wandered through their station. Of particular interest was the blacksmith who produced a square-headed nail for each guest. The lady who explained one of the houses was a descendant of the family who had lived there. Her mother had been born in the house! The museum pictured life in the early 1900's in the area. We loved it!
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