About once a month I get a hankering for raisin bran muffins. This is no doubt my Mother’s fault. Mother cooked her bran muffins in the old wood-fired country kitchen stove oven. We only got them when we could afford the Kellogg’s Bran cereal, usually the week the Family Allowance cheque arrived. In truth, there were no magic ingredients: bran, Robin Hood flour, baking powder, baking soda, shortening, milk, salt, molasses, fresh eggs, and raisins. A dab of farm butter on a hot muffin was to die for.
I have nothing against a Tim Horton’s raisin bran muffin and a slab of whipped something that looks like butter. In fact, they offer many variations of additives like carrots, blueberries, cranberries, and a mysterious mixture of things called morning glory delight. However, my dietician, my wife, and my paddling coach all say NO to Tim’s muffins. It is something about Fats, Sugars, and Calories. Besides, their muffins are too big.
So I was delighted to see some smaller muffins offered for sale at my grocery store. Smaller equals fewer calories, I told myself. I could smuggle them into the house. They were not raisin bran but Blueberry. In the smaller print banner it said Gluten Free. I can still eat almost anything and gluten is some strange thing that I neither avoid nor look for in the ingredients of what I eat.
Using your imagination, think of mixing a batter of mush made from water, recycled cardboard, dehydrated blueberries, reconstituted egg, cornstarch, various preservative chemicals, salt, and a drop of vanilla extract. All sweetened by Steve somebody. No fresh eggs, no molasses, no raisins, no Robin Hood flour, no milk, no nuts, and no TLC. Even my crows wouldn’t them.
It may be a leap to go from muffins to politics but bear with me. In fact, in today’s world, almost everything we touch is tinged by politics. Think about the price of gas at the pumps and you have the boondoggle of the pipeline across the mountains out west. Considering a new car – NAFTA and the Auto Pact. Bad weather and you think of climate change and what we are doing, if anything, about it. Going to the beer store and you think about that promise of a buck a beer and you drop forty dollars for a 2-4. Worrying about how best to explain the birds and the bees to your child and the sex Ed comes to mind. Who to vote for in our coming election and you think notwithstanding you want a change, who do you choose?
Maybe it is all in the ingredients of what makes a politician today. We can look back through history and see the machinations of politicians through the centuries, and wonder what if anything has changed. There are still some who would fill their own pockets, some who would cheat and lie, say things untrue and be of poor moral character. And yet, there are those who are dedicated and true to their beliefs. Those who think of the common weal and those who have their roots founded on principle.
I like to think of them like the ingredients of Mom’s old raisin bran muffins: basic, nutritious, and uncompromising in quality. However, it seems too many today are accommodating to every whim. They are willing to use 2 per cent soymilk instead of whole milk; perhaps using bleached cane sugar instead of molasses; maybe a month-old egg; some crushed seeds instead of flour; some artificial flavouring instead of Jamaican vanilla picked by underpaid labourers . . . compromise and compromise and pretty soon you have muffins that crows won’t eat.
To keep the muffin allegory going, I wonder what ingredients Vic is willing to substitute at Queens Park. Or will he stick to the old recipe? Closer to home, I wonder who will be in the mix at City Hall. Who will be stirring the batter? What kind of muffins can we expect? (And please, no comments about the frozen road muffins we used to play street hockey with . . . just saying.)
