File this treat under escargot and steak tartar

Page 5

Occasionally I get asked by some poor fool who actually thinks I might know something, if I can boil down, or synthesize as briefly as possible, the essential differences between Native people and white people. Many wise and learned men have spent their careers researching and debating that very topic. Well, surprisingly, I believe I have found one such example, and it was lurking in my morning cup of coffee all this time.

Coffee beans are grown all around the world, and its final product comes in many different flavors and prices, but an average, good quality brand will usually set you back about $12 a pound. To many, a day without coffee is not a day worth living.

One of the more expensive brands of black liquid is called Blue Mountain, and it comes from the fertile hills of Jamaica. To get your morning jolt will set you back $75 a pound. I always thought that was a pretty expensive addiction. Glass for glass, it is substantially more expensive than most beer and wines.

But recently, it has come to light that there is an even more expensive brand of coffee out there on the market. One so expensive, that there are only four stores in Canada that carry it. It's called Kopi Luwak and, believe it or not, this caffeine concoction costs $600 a pound! Heroin is a cheaper high.

Now that in itself is marginally interesting, but it doesn't necessarily answer our philosophical question as to the true nature of Aboriginal/Caucasian differences. That comes via the way the coffee is harvested.

In a far off land called Indonesia, on the other side of the world, is an island called Sumatra. There, the people grow and sell a lot of coffee beans. Some of the best coffee beans in the world, in fact.

Now, on that island is this animal that likes coffee almost as much as we do. It's a marsupial, from the same family as the possum and the kangaroo, and it's called a Paradoxurus. It loves raw coffee beans. In fact, it eats a lot of them, but the bean itself is too hard to be digested in its natural state, and eventually nature and a good digestive system takes its course.

So, believe it or not, the local Natives scour the jungle forests for these "discarded and processed" coffee beans. They then sell them to local coffee brokers who promptly package the hopefully freshly washed beans, and send them to places like North America where people will pay a fortune for them, primarily because the coffee is prized for its "earthy flavor", which I think is a unique way of phrasing $600 for a pound for Marsupial droppings. And it sells. And who buys almost all of it? I don't think it's a giant leap to say, more than likely, white people.

Now, I can't help but wonder if the Sumatran Natives that gather this stuff were snickering to themselves, and shaking their head in amazement, when they came up with this idea. The idea that somewhere out there in the world, white people would actually pay a month's rent to grind these preprocessed beans up and drink it. "Good joke, huh?"

Another part of me wonders if this didn't start off as some big elaborate joke by the local tribes and somehow, the joke backfired. The Natives probably only get a couple bucks per pound for the beans. Just enough to buy some soap and water to wash their hands, and then the coffee brokers sell it for $600 in Canada.

Now I realize I am being a bit pan-Indian when I say that I don't think I know of many Native/Aboriginal/First Nations/Inuit persons who are that desperate for their morning fix that they would willingly pay that much money for a couple of coffee beans.

Considering the current economic state of most Native communities and individuals, it's highly unlikely they're part of the prime target demographic envisioned by the marketers. And no doubt, the vast majority of our community would find the whole idea rather... icky.

Again, I would have to say that, overwhelmingly, the prime purchasers would have to be non-Native. Anybody that would eat garlic-cvered snails would probably have no problem with coffee produced in such a manner.

I, on the other hand, come from a community where my mother lives and breathes by her instant coffee. I once got a lecture from her because I got a $50 haircut. I think she's a fairly good barometer of the state of the Indigenous mind and what it prefers and can afford.

However, the entrepreneur in me wonders if maybe we could tap into this whole possum poop thing and use it for some sort of economic development in our own communities.

The people of the Assembly of First Nations and Indian and Northern Development should pay attention. In central Ontario there's a reserve called Wahta (formally Gibson's), and they have a reputation for harvesting a sizable crop of cranberries every year. It's a large and successful industry. I wonder what would happen if maybe they ran a few cranberries through some of the local raccoons. Might up the profits a bit. Raccoon-flavored cranberries. Could start a trend.

I wouldn't buy it, but I bet somebody would.