Ian Brown has been writing in the Globe and Mail about eating in Canada is a series sensibly called "Ian Brown Eats Canada". Not a bad gig, he is driving across the country and stopping in at restaurants, farms, and private homes to get a feel for food in Canada. Brown is a terrific writer; he could write about going into the local convenience store for a litre of milk and the tale would be compelling. If his task is to capture food in Canada in a series of selective snap shots he is doing just that; I hope that the stories stay around as they would be compelling reading for someone 50 years hence.

I found today's story "Tell me, were you really Miss Grey Cup?" (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/ian-brown-eats-canada/tell-me-were-you-really-miss-grey-cup/article1664836/ ) strangely unsettling. The story is cute enough. Brown encounters an old grade school chum and is invited the chum's place for dinner. The "Miss Grey Cup" reference is to the chum's mother who Ian had a bit of a thing for 50 years ago. She is alive and very well at 80 and is part of the dinner party. A good story.

What unsettles me is the meal itself. The menu is seven courses "featuring only the best Alberta local ingredients". I won't repeat the whole menu , the reader can check the link (which of course has a limited life) but as one example : bruschetta with heirloom tomatoes from Broxburn Farm near Lethbridge and basil from Calgary's Basil Ranch, all on oiled-and-grilled ciabatta from Lina's Italian Market in Calgary. All seven courses were that special. There was an entire buffalo tenderloin that is supposedly very tough to get. The pasta was made by a lawyer who once spent a month in Italy just learning how to make noodles.

The communal cooks were all wealthy and took a great deal of pride in this meal: Local, Organic, Fresh, Homemade, Meticulously Cooked. Is this what Food Porn is? Maybe I am just being petty and jealous here, I lack the resources or the skill to make a meal such as this. But this clearly is a meal for the wealthy elite.

There is a quote from Tom Standage's "An Edible History of Humanity" from Voltaire "After the year 1500 there was no pepper to be had at Calicut that was not dyed red with blood" Calicut (now Kozhikode for those who care) is / was on the south west Malabar Coast on India. Voltaire was talking about the millions of lives that had been lost, disrupted, and ruined since Roman times in the quest for for unnecessary foods; that is to say spices. One could say the the Western Domination and Colonization of the East would not have happened had it not been for our love of pepper.

So if Pepper was the Original Food Porn, is not our obsession with that impossible to get bison tenderloin the same thing? The people in Ian Brown's story sound like remarkable, intelligent, caring, human beings. And let me state the obvious - I wish I had been there , although I am sure if the likes of me had shown up within camera range of the house I would be in a Calgary Police Cruiser.

But why can't I shake the feeling that this obsession for local and organic is just as evil as setting sail to trade for spices in the Indonesian Archipelago?