Pass it through a civet

I'm walking through the market and see a pet store with a civet in the window. They are not native to Korea, but neither are dogs and cats, so that shouldn't stop anyone from selling them.

Every couple of years I hear about civet coffee. This coffee from Indonesia that has been picked, off the forest floor, out of civet droppings. Having passed through a civet, it naturally costs hundreds of dollars a pound. Every time I hear about it, I think, "Gross!" and then I look it up, and it is not the civet droppings that the people are paying for. They clean the beans. The beans come out partially digested, and apparently this takes the bitter out of the coffee. It is more delicious for having passed through a civet.

I wonder what else would be more delicious after being passed through a civet. I buy the civet and take it home. I throw out the air fryer. Buying it was a terrible decision. We only ever us it to make fried chicken, and for that, it takes up way too much space in our small kitchen. This civet is way smaller, and fits nicely under the sink.

"You are going to have to feed it," my wife says, once again mistaking me for her mother, to whom even the most obvious things must frequently be explained.

"Exactly, woman." I commend her, "You've happened upon the self-same fact that induced me to buy it."

"Is it a boy or a girl?" Lisa asks.

"What do you see here my little dear?" I ask Lisa, showing her the civet's under-carriage.

"It's a boy!" she says. "Let's name him Mark."

"This is a working civet, Lisa, I don't know that it will have time for names."

"What is Mark's job?" asks Lucy from the counter, where she is washing rice.

"Cooking." I explain, "They say everything is better after it has passed through a civet. Here, let him eat that rice."

I hold the civet over the bowl of washed rice. He sniffs it, and turns away. I look up on YouTube how to pass rice through a civet, and after two hours he has eaten it, and after another day we are ready to cook the civet seared rice.

And sure enough, it is not bitter at all.

"Is this not the best rice you have ever had?" I ask.

"It just tastes like rice," says Lucy.

"Nonsense Lucy! Civet rice costs 300,000 won for a 10 kilogram bag!" I exclaim.

Impressed by big prices, my wife says that it is delicious.

"Can you make civet bagels?" Lucy asks.

And sure enough, that is on YouTube too.

"How much would they cost if we bought them?" my wife asks.

I search a little more. "Over 10,000 won a bagel!"

"You have to make some Mark," she says, I haven't seen her this excited since we went to the Value Village in Montreal. "You have to make a bunch!"

"You don't even like bagels." I say to her.

"If we are saving 9,000 won a bagel," she says, "I don't have to like them."

It's a little hard to wash the feces off of the dough, and to then shape it into a circle, but the end product is a wonder. Crispy and chewy in just the right measures, and not a bit of bitter.

Mark is a keeper.