National Post | October 15, 1999 | Sondra Gotlieb
Columnist Gotlieb writes that now that the chefs at Government House have been ordered by the G.G. to only use organic food, it's OK with her. We taxpayers want the G.G. and her guests to eat the best. The Queen's representative should serve scrumptious and healthy feasts to all those demagogues who come to call. Maybe Madame's next visitor will be that general who just putsched Pakistan.
But that is the question: What is organic food? Is it really the healthiest and tastiest? At the shops the lettuce called organic is pricier and dirtier than the lettuce that comes from the country we and Madame so dread, the United States.
I just bought an organic turkey for Thanksgiving. No Butterball for me, thank you very much. But what do I really know about my organic turkey, except that it costs more and has a sign saying "organic"?
Was my turkey raised on a fairy-book farm, trotting through the pumpkin patch, nibbling corn from the hands of the farmer's children before they cut its head off. Who knows? I'm not sure that it tasted better than Butterball. It's all in the basting. Encore du beurre, as Zonda, the greatest chef at Government House, believed. The more butter you baste your turkey with, the better it's going to taste. Mine, I have to admit, was dry, because I'm watching the cholesterol.
Who inspects these organic farms anyhow? If I were Madame, I'd send husband off, to make sure the poultry run free, the cattle cross the road and the fruits and veggies are clear of all pesticides. He'd have to go pretty often to make sure that Mr. Farmer doesn't get fed up and spray a little malathion on the fruit trees.
Organic farmers have tended to be low-tech. I was just reading a book by Leslie Land, a garden writer, who describes her organic garden of flowers and veggies. She composts human ordure from her outhouse with healthy peat moss and kitchen leavings, until it turns into something "almost like soil" (night soil, to use a Chinese euphemism), which she spreads on the flowers - not the vegetables. But Leslie, what about the birds and the bees, creatures great and small, that transfer bits of night soil from the Casablanca lily to the tomato bed? Earth moves. So what's a bit of E.coli?
If I were Mr. Saul, I would check on just what kind of manure is being used in the organic farms of Madame's choice. We don't want a headline about Order of Canada recipients vomiting and suffering from cramps and the runs at Government House.
I have dined on occasion at Rideau Hall since Roland Michener was G.G. Very formal (a footman behind each chair), but the food was delicious. I remember an apple stuffed with snowy Calvados sherbet. I don't know if the apple was organic. The Calvados was from France. The food wasn't so great during the Schreyer period because Lily was watching her figure and the NDP types who frequented the place liked buffet. During Jeanne Sauve's time, the quality of the food returned to a high standard. But Jeanne didn't fret about organic or what country the tomatoes came from.
It's alleged that Madame doesn't want to import food from the U.S. I'm not sure if this is because she was an anti-free tradenik with the U.S. or if she wants to serve only Canadian-grown products.
If the first rumour is true, it means that the U.S., a democratic country, has been blackballed, but Mexico is OK. Mexico is sort of democratic but not quite. I have crossed the American-Mexican border many times, from Texas to California. Everything on the U.S. side is green and growing - of course, the tomatoes may be pulpy, but the U.S. earth provides food for millions. Cross the border - same land, same weather - miles of weeds and sand. When I asked Mexican officials for the reason, they answered: "Absentee landlords. Too much land owned by too few families. And those rich families live in the city. No incentive for local Mexicans to farm" - organically or not.
If this new ruling is not specifically about U.S. food, but meant to ensure only grown-in-Canada food, Government House will have to dig root cellars filled with beets, onions, turnips, etc. for the long Ottawa winter. I forgot. Hydroponics. Very expensive. Didn't some cucumber greenhouse bankrupt Newfoundland? Are Canadian greenhouses considered organic? Is hydroponic organic? Ask Madame.
