Liquid gold

Jim Watson, who says it's time restaurants in Canada started showing they're proud Canadian, tells the waitress to bring him an order of French toast, and then reaches inside his jacket and pulls out that which he's promoting to wake up Canadian restaurants to our heritage.

It is not a fried moose steak he pulls out.

It is not a grilled beaver steak he pulls out.

What Jim Watson -- former Ottawa mayor, former provincial health promotion minister, and current minister of municipal affairs and housing -- pulls out is a small, grey, plastic bottle, and he twists off the top, pours a stream of the contents onto his French toast. Jim Watson never travels without his bottle when he's eating out, prepared always for the possibility of his stomach requesting French toast, waffles, or pancakes.

NOTHING PHONY HERE

"Real maple syrup," beams Watson. He grimaces at the small packet of bogus syrup the waitress brought. "Not that phony stuff. If you knew its ingredients you'd be shocked. Some of the names you can't pronounce. The 100% pure syrup definitely has a better taste."

Watson takes a bite of his real-maple-syrup-slathered French toast. "We're not far from the maple syrup capital of Canada. Lanark. Canada produces more maple syrup than any country in the world, it's our national culinary identity.

"When I was president of the Canadian Tourism Commission, we put together a culinary tourism strategy. The biggest thing people in other countries, potential tourists, recognized as truly Canadian cuisine was maple syrup. What's more specifically Canadian than maple syrup?

"Go to restaurants in other countries and you can almost always find on the menus items that are generic to the individual countries, not only for their own citizens, but more so for tourists. I find it strange most of our restaurants in the city that serve items that go with syrup don't have our real maple syrup. The few that do charge you extra for it."

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After our breakfast, I phoned a couple of restaurants that serve French toast, waffles and pancakes. "I am German toureezt," I said to the woman who answered at Kristy's Restaurant on Richmond Rd. "Do you zerve ze real Canadian maple zeerup?"

"Yes we do. We charge $2. It's two ounces."

"But vy you charge?"

"Because it's real."

"Hast you alzo ze not real zeerup?"

"Yes. The table syrup is free."

A man answered at Cora's Breakfast And Lunch on Merivale Rd.

"I am toureezt from ze Germany," I said. "Hast you ze real Canadian maple zeerup?"

"We certainly do."

"Is zit free?"

"We offer it for 50 cents. It's in a two-ounce package."

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"We have hundreds of maple syrup operators in Ontario," says Watson. "I'd love to see more restaurants use the real syrup. At least give the consumers a choice between it and the artificial syrup. When I visited tourism organizations around the world, I'd always take along gift boxes of real maple leaf syrup. The reaction, it was like giving out ounces of gold.

"We're trying to bring people here to experience Canadian cuisine. Go to any airport souvenir shop in Canada and they're selling real Canadian maple syrup. You see the tourists buying it. That tells me there's a market for it. They want it more than a Canadian T-shirt."

Watson polishes off his French toast. "When people go to restaurants without the real syrup, they should ask that it be put on the menu." He screws the cap back onto his bottle of real Canadian maple syrup. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."