Recently, a young Inuk woman started plucking her gift from home, a goose, on a train in Montreal’s métro. This was recorded on a cellphone and uploaded to the Internet. It went viral for all the wrong reasons.
Eventually, the young woman came forth to explain that she’s an Inuk simply practicing her traditional food preparation. This story riled me as I remember the days spent in the south, months on end without real food that didn’t come in a package.
Kraft dinners and cheap hams, day-old bread and 10 pounds of mayo with nickel pickles and sardines. That was the fare back in the day when monthly rations of funds went to the rent and left little for food. This is the common situation for many people from the north who crave for foods rich in nutrients that are also culturally and palate satisfying. Kudos to her, I say.
Other unfortunate students studying in southern cities would often salivate at the sight of the Canada goose, just walking within reach of hungry hands. One time, at the end of the month and payday still a week away, students called each other to see what was left in their pantry. One had some breadcrumbs, one had an onion, what to do?
Desperate, one young lad snuck up to sleeping geese in the park and coaxed them with some of the crumbs, a few calls and snatched an unsuspecting goose! He quickly killed it and hurried back to the others. They had enough for a stuffed goose! Another hungry student showed up with carrots and a feast was under way.
Seeing such abundance of food hanging around in an area where they are considered pests may be an answer to a problem for many people. Harvesting the pests and allowing the people from the north to process those geese for food may work for those in need of such solutions. Something to mull over, I guess. I just hope that the southern population doesn’t discover how good they taste.
I guess the young Inuk and her spectators may be on to something. What if the métro became a showcase for all kinds of food preparation techniques from around the world? I guess the population may become more aware of how their chickens are processed, or how long it takes to kill a pig or even lay an egg. The world of food does not start from a package! It comes from the land around the area and even from other lands from around the world! But does spreading peanut butter on a jam sandwich while traveling to work or school or wherever on the métro deserve the same coverage as a goose being plucked?
Perhaps authorities should stop food from being exposed in public areas. Maybe the world will be a better place? Naaah! Who cares, as long as someone enjoys the food. It should remain what it is – food. Not some orgiastic display of bloodletting that the public always wanted, but something that any good woman from the north would know right off the bat, it’s better when it’s cooked over a fire.
