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At first, there's the thrill. You practically swooned tasting that sheep cheese in France. Or maybe it was rice crackers or pickled radishes in Tokyo. In your suitcase, you've managed to stuff a dozen delicious mementoes - an international doggie bag.
You convince yourself it should be okay. After all, you're going to eat everything as soon you get home. And it's not like you're smuggling
firearms.
So why are you sweating as one of the canine detectives at Toronto's Pearson International Airport approaches your luggage?
At a closed-off area at Pearson International Airport, a dog named Lana demonstrates her official duties: When she sniffs out contraband food, she puts a paw on the offending luggage and alerts an official from Canada Border Services. (Ashley Hutcheson for The Globe and Mail)
Among the keenest pleasures of travelling is food not previously encountered. I still remember everything I ate on my first trip to Europe - the tang of olives in Paris and perfumed pesto in Genoa.
Sure, you can now find these items at gourmet shops in Canada's major cities. But there's nothing quite like buying them at the source. They're fresher, of course, and usually cheaper. Back in your own kitchen, they bring back memories of trips past.
But there is a catch: Do you declare them at the airport? If you get caught with a rogue kilo of fresh Dutch Edam or a rope of Provencal garlic, will they be taken from you? Or worse, will you be charged a hefty fine for your attempt at long-distance takeout?
Few travelling gastronomes can figure out what edibles you can legally bring into the country, and this state of affairs creates a sense of guilt and confusion. The customs declaration form is maddeningly vague. What exactly are "plant materials" anyway? That delectable French greengage jam, impossible to find in Canada, is definitely made of fruit - but is it forbidden fruit? The tinned foie gras is meat ... isn't it?
In the end, like many guilty foodies, I've kept mum.
None of which comes as a surprise to Edward Filman. An officer with Canada Border Services at Pearson, he says he has confiscated everything from fruit to bloody meat. Some pose unfair competition to local producers, others can carry pests that endanger Canada's food supply.
To find offending foods, Filman and other officials count on a team of very effective spies: those food-sniffing beagles that work on the international arrivals level. They're trained to sniff out eggs, plums, potatoes, chicken feet and other meats as they circle the baggage carousels, while ignoring permissible foods.
In a closed-off area of Pearson one afternoon, Filman demonstrates with a dog named Lana. She circles bags in a faux arrivals area until she picks up the right scent - at which point she places a paw on the bag in question and wags her tail. If she smells contraband in your pocket, she may also jump up on you.
All of which sounds friendly. But according to Filman, Lana has been on the job for six years and nothing dicey gets past her. And once she gets excited about your suitcase or carry-on bag, you will be asked firmly to open it and answer a few questions.
"Sometimes people bring in really stinky fish and declare it, because they think that we will then not look for meat. Once we found a whole sausage stuck down into the body of a fish," Filman recalls.
WHAT NOT TO PACK
Inspectors take a particularly stern view of meat.
"What we are worried about is BSE [the mad-cow virus] infecting Canadian livestock," Filman says. "Only six countries in the world do proper testing to classify beef as being BSE-free: Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and the U.S. But this could change overnight."
This means no beef is allowed in, not even canned, since BSE is not destroyed by heat. Mutton also carries a small risk of the disease, so travellers coming home from Scotland can forget the haggis. And while commercially canned poultry and pork products are okay, nothing raw, smoked or salted is permitted.
"We have no way of knowing how it was made, whether heat was applied," Filman says.
In fact, to keep up with the vast array of meats checked through major airports such as Pearson - surreptitiously or not - demands a knowledge of foreign delicacies worthy of Anthony Bourdain.
