Porcupine soup? Road kill is not on the menu
Posted By Jenn Watt
Posted 7 months ago
It was the tinkling sound of porcupine quills swirling in my soup bowl that made me first wonder just why I thought teaming up with Steve Galea on these “humour” columns was such a great idea.
Sitting in his Essonville kitchen at a table full of “local food,” I realized how wrong a situation could go and how … adventurous Galea was willing to be to live up to the hype.
The hype, of course, is Galea’s outdoorsman sensibility; the local food – far from the freshly picked strawberries I was expecting – was technically local, but the food part was questionable.
“Jenn, you’ve got a lot to learn about the wilderness,” Galea said, throwing a whole cattail into the road-kill porcupine soup that was frothing away on the stovetop.
“Everything you need you can find in the wild, or at least at the side of the road,” he said. He breathed deeply, puffed up his chest and threw in what looked to be a chipmunk.
Holding down my dandelion tea, I tried to reason with him.
“Steve, I’m really new to this,” I said. “I know Greg Hoekstra was very experimental, but I’m more of a traditional kind of girl. This issue of Cottage Times is supposed to be about farmers’ markets and juicy tomatoes, not road-kill stew and onion sandwiches.”
“Allium tricoccums? That’s a terrific idea!” Galea smiled. “This is a learning experience for you, come along and glean what you can from my divine wilderness teachings!”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but thought if we could just get out of the house and away from my cup of porcupine quills things would get better.
As Steve was donning his bug jacket and rubber boots his wife Carol popped her head in the door.
“Steve, I’m going to milk the cows now, do you need anything before I go?” she asked.
“Fresh milk? That’s local food!” I said, looking eagerly at Galea. “We should go with Carol.”
“Young grasshopper, that’s not the point,” he said. “We need to get our hands dirty, walk purposefully on the earth, breathing deeply.”
“Speaking of breathing deeply,” he said, “have a go with that Listerine by the door.”
Swallowing my pride, I swished the potent liquid around my mouth wondering just how bad my breath must have been for Steve to notice.
“What are you doing??” Galea yelped from across the room. “The Listerine is for the bugs! Didn’t you read that chain letter I emailed you yesterday? You spray it on. Mosquitoes hate nothing more than cool mint,” he said as he sprayed the bottle over his head.
Feeling minty fresh and a little bit sticky, Galea and I trudged through the forest looking for something edible.
“How about these chives?” I asked.
“Carol planted those. We need something natural,” he said.
“Okay, fine,” I answered and looked around for something else mildly appetizing. Suddenly I felt a tingling in my bladder.
“Steve, I have to take a leak,” I said, my eyes darting around for an outhouse.
“Oh perfect!” he squealed. “This is exactly why we came out here. Go to it!”
I found a bush out of the way and crouched down, hoping the Listerine was potent enough to save my skin from the mosquitoes.
Mere seconds later I heard the crunching steps of Steve coming around the corner.
“AHHH!” I screamed. “This is private! Go away!”
“AHHH” he screamed back. “Those are my raspberry bushes, what are you doing to them?”
“I’m peeing – taking a leak,” I said.
“Well, given that we’re searching for leeks, allium tricoccum, you could have been a little more specific,” he huffed.
I was sick of this. What sort of column had I got myself into. This surely wasn’t in my contract.
“Alright, Galea,” I said. “Now listen up. This column is about local food – like fresh farm eggs, wild blueberries and locally raised beef. I will be darned if we spend the rest of the afternoon searching for onions and scraping meat off the road,” I said.
But he wasn’t listening. Steve was already bounding up the hill, or at least bounding as much as a four-foot-four man can bound.
“You want beef? I’ll show you beef!” he called back to me.
I had no idea where we were so I had to follow, but couldn’t imagine what would be next.
To my surprise, he led me to a field full of livestock. Cows. Regular people food.
“Now this is terrific! These must be Carol’s cows. What can you tell me about them?” I pulled out my reporter’s pad, ready to finally return to firm ground.
He just looked at me.
“Well?” I said.
He stared some more, but slowly pulled a knife and fork from his back pocket.
“Now we eat!” he exclaimed and poked Bessy’s butt with the sharp tines of a dinner fork.
Bessy turned to Steve, snorted and trotted off, well faster than Steve’s little legs could run.
“Well, Watt,” Steve growled, “I guess this is the end of the local food column. We’ve had nothing to eat but dandelion tea and I still have a porcupine quill in my throat. Happy now?”
Galea was right, the whole day had been a flop. We had scavenged and foraged and come up empty handed, but there was a glimmer of hope.
“You know,” I said, “today is Sunday, and if I’m not mistaken there’s a farmers’ market just 10 kilometres from here in Tory Hill.”
“I think you’re right,” he said with a smile.
“You know what Watt? I think we just may make this column thing work after all.”
The end.
