10 May 2011

Ibis - The Other Other White Meat. Maybe

I wonder if ibis are tasty. I wonder because I think I may have the answer to a couple of persistent problems.

I drive to work through a street that is entirely made up of flats. I reckon they’ve got to be largely housing commission. There are just too many adults, with not quite the right number of teeth, hanging around during working hours for it to be anything else. I’m trying not to come off sounding like a snob here (kept a straight face for one second, typing that) but it’s chockers with the type of people you see over represented on A Current Affair because of a neighbourhood feud involving a car, a fence and a large dog.

These flats have rubbish-bin areas that resemble something you see Indian orphans sifting through in documentaries. Since the arrival in Sydney of what I like to call The Ibis Plague or TIP, the bins are now topped by off-white feathers and thousands of emergent long, black necks topped by bald, wrinkly black heads. Those ibis just stand around on those bins, communing with each other in a way that reminds me of long distance shots of the crowd at Haj.

Here’s the answer: why not start ibis farming? We’ve obviously got the appropriate environment. We’ve got local labour on tap. At first it could be a subsistence effort for the unemployed while they get the tastiness sorted out through selective breeding, then they could go to market once the ibis crop is tender and delicious. Iburger, anyone?

(Had my first flu shot ever, today. Think that’s why I’m so thoughfully considering issues around feathers.)

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