Sweet ’n’ low

by RAF KATIGBAK

The first thing I want you to do is sit down. Actually, if you’re reading this, you’re probably already sitting down, so stand up. Okay, now sit down again.

This is the kind of news that should only be heard in a comfortable, private space. If you’re reading this at the kitchen table at home, you should probably go sit on your couch. If you’re on lunch break at work, in the cafeteria, then pick up your tray, get in your car, drive home, and sit on your couch. If you’re reading this standing up on the bus, then sit on the lap of the person directly to your left. If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands, and if you’re a girl with your own real fingernails, and you have a job, and don’t need no man to tell you about your business, say hoooo!

Okay, so now for the bad news. Canada is in danger. Well, not physically per se, but more our identity as Canadians is in danger. As I’m sure you already know, maple syrup yields are the worst they’ve been in six years.

Wait, don’t laugh. Okay, you can laugh, but just make sure you aren’t drinking root beer and making it shoot out of your nose onto the person whose lap you’re sitting on. And while you’re at it, don’t sneeze while you’re eating spaghetti, causing one end of a noodle to exit your nasal cavity, and then start yanking it back and forth through your nose and mouth like some kind of edible tug of war, that’s just silly. And we’re talking maple syrup now, it’s serious business.

How serious? Well, consider that 85 per cent of the global market is produced in Canada and 95 per cent of that, in Quebec. Have you ever wondered what life would be like if we suddenly stopped producing maple syrup altogether? What would that mean for the world? Well, did you see that Children of Men movie? It would be like that, except worse.

“Hey dad, can you pass the maple syrup?”

“Sorry little Billy, now that Canada has stopped producing maple syrup, all we have left is car oil sweetened with broken pieces of Jolly Ranchers.”

Tragic. What’s more, without maple syrup, moms wouldn’t be able to pack those disgusting maple cream cookies into nerds’ lunches and the lunchtime bully-bribe equilibrium would collapse, resulting in indiscriminate wedgies throughout the playground.

There are a few things that we as Canadians are expected to care about. The first is hockey (duh), the second is maple syrup. While I don’t particularly like to subscribe to cultural stereotypes (it’s not like we all ride polar bears to our igloos, eh?), one thing I do love is that sweet brown nectar. The dripping vanilla/caramel-infused crack that bleeds from the trees every season. So what if a lot of maple syrup farms use a paraformaldehyde solution to make the trees bleed longer, and that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency generally reports annually one case of lead contamination from improper equipment? I mean, what else should I put on my Eggos, sugar?!

Indeed, while some epicurean elitists would cry “barf” at the idea, I say you haven’t lived until you’ve had that cabane à sucre experience of covering every inch of your meal in maple syrup. Ham with maple syrup: delicious. Eggs with maple syrup: amazing. Cantonese chow mein and fried rice with maple syrup: also delicious. A Taco Bell Spicy Chicken Burrito and Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes with maple syrup: super-size me!

That’s why, when I heard that this season’s harvest ended horribly thanks to the March and early April frost, then the 25-degree heat two weeks ago, I reacted like any average Canadian would—I ran out to my local IGA, bought every last can of syrop d’érable, stockpiled it in a makeshift bunker I’ve fashioned out of scraps of wood and old car parts in the alley behind my apartment and have been guarding it with a baseball bat for the last three days waiting for the hooligans to come and just try and take it from me.

Riff-Raff@sympatico.ca