What's Wrong with Eating Dog Meat?
Posted: Monday, July 10, 2006
by Marc Holt
http://holtww.com
Golly! Dog lovers the world over (well in the US and Europe anyway) are trying to get the Koreans to stop eating dogs. They have even enlisted FIFA to step in and put the pressure on the Koreans. See the report here: http://www.slate.com/id/2060840/
Imagine what would happen if suddenly these fastidious people realized that Thais eat not only dogs but Insects too!
Although I had lived in Thailand about 10 years before I married my current wife, I had only noted the Thai fondness for insects from a distance. It wasn't until my wife and I were married in a simple ceremony at her parent's home in a small village about 40 kilometers north east of Ubon Ratchathani near the Laotian border that I came close to the practice.
We hired a van to drive up there taking a few of our close friends with us to witness our union and to enjoy a fun filled few days up in the country. I'm not sure what was served up at the reception because there was just too much of it and we were happily draining a couple of cases of Mekhong whiskey and 'Lao Khao', the Thai equivalent of moonshine.
The day after the wedding my new family, and there were dozens of them, took us to the Moon River for a picnic aboard floating bamboo rafts. We all sat down anticipating a delicious Bar-B-Q and some seafood.
The first course was mouth-watering banana leafs full of red ant eggs. Hmmm. My friends and I passed on that one while we watched my new family tuck in with gusto. Next came plates of prawns swimming in alcohol. These fellas were jumping around and diving in and out of the brew. Naturally, this dish was called 'Drunken Prawns'. Thankfully, they were probably so drunk by the time they slid down our throats that they didn't care that they were being eaten. They were quite tasty.
Next came a selection of deep-fried insects, mostly grasshoppers, but I think there were other things in there that looked like cockroaches too. My Thai hosts assured me that these were very clean cockroaches harvested from among the rice stalks on their farm. Definitely not my cup of tea thanks, but the Thais crunched on them with relish.
The first few times I returned it was much the same. I must say that my Thai family tried valiantly to serve me up food I could actually eat, but they didn't really know much about farung (foreign) food. My basic staple while I was up there was usually omelets or white bread spread with margarine, and instant Nescafe for breakfast. I never eat white bread or drink instant coffee, so apart from my terrible hunger pains it was also an expression of my love for my new family that I actually downed it all with a smile on my face.
I've learned since then to go prepared and I always take a cooler filled with UHT milk, a pound of butter, fresh coffee beans, and some cheese. I keep the cheese until the Thais drag out their 'Pla Ra' fermented fish. So we both sit there with beatific smiles on our faces tucking into incredibly smelly food. Hey! Fair is fair, right?
Pla Ra has got to be one of the most disgusting foods ever for us fastidious farungs. It's made by fermenting raw fish in earthen jars buried in the ground. The resulting mess smells even worse than it sounds, but the Thais love it. They heap it onto their 'Som Tum', papaya salad and laugh whenever I run from the room. I have banned my wife and cousins from the house when they eat. They have to eat it outside where the dreadful stench can't waft into the house. I guess the sight of an overweight old man retching was enough to convince them to heed my banishment order.
I've even heard of Thais eating live monkey brains, although I've never actually seen it. Apparently, they lock the poor monkey into a device under a table with the crown of its head poking up through a hole in the table. Then they take a sharp sword and slice off the crown, something like taking the top off a boiled egg. They tuck in and scoop out the still live brain and eat it. Quite possibly the reason I have never actually seen this is because many of the diners are rumored to get some sort of terrible brain seizure and die afterwards. So I guess Karma really does work.
I started out talking about eating dogs, and I must apologize for the digression, but you gotta admit eating insects, drunken prawns, monkey brains and Pla Ra is definitely on a par with eating dog.
My first contact with eating dogs came about in the Philippines, where it is also a delicacy. The habit may have come about during the Marcos years when everyone was so poor they ate anything they could get their hands on. I believe there are no monkeys left anywhere in the country, either, because they ate them all.
Be that as it may some of them also love eating dog. I was taken one time to the deepest depths of Negros Island by one of my Philippino friends. He lived way up in the mountains in a little village miles from anywhere.
The first morning there I got up and wandered outside. There was his beautiful black dog lolling about with a very bad head wound obviously caused by a severe blow with a blunt instrument. I called out to my friend who staggered out (we had been doing justice to a case of 'San Mig' beere the night before). He took one look at his favorite dog, grunted, walked inside and returned with a revolver in his hand. He shot the dog right there.
That was shocking enough, but then he picked it up and grunted to me to follow him. We went out to a shed at the back of the house where he hung it from the rafters by its back legs. He slit the skin around the ankles, or whatever you call them on a dog, made a slit down the chest and belly, and then stripped the hide off. Next he gutted it and started to carve it up.
After the initial shock of seeing what he was doing I got over my squeamishness and asked him what he was doing as I watched. I had only recently come from Australia where all our butchering is done well before we see the meat in sterile shop displays.
"We're going to eat him. It's a shame he's dead, but one of my neighbors obviously knocked him on the head and would have taken him to eat if you hadn't gone out and scared him off. So why waste a good dog?"
When the dog was dressed (strange to use that word when it was actually undressed, but that's the English language for you, isn't it?), we carried it into the house and he cooked up a big curry. When it was ready he invited the neighbors over for a feast and we all tucked in.
What did it taste like? Well, it had a strong coppery taste I think. It was a bit hard to tell because of the curry, but it definitely left a coppery after-taste. The meat was nothing special. It wasn't tough and stringy, and it wasn't all that tender. It was just meat.
Why did I eat it?
Well, I've eaten snake, crocodile, bear, wild turkey and kangaroo tail soup, so why not? I wanted to see what it was like. Later on when I returned to Baguio, north of Manila, I also had some sun-dried dog meat, a bit like the dried beef the Thais serve up here. In fact, it tastes much the same, so who knows? Maybe the dried beef is actually dog meat.
Some Thais definitely like to eat dog meat too. I watched a Thai movie the other night called, 'Moo Ping & Khao Niow' (Bar-B-Q Pork and Sticky Rice). It was a tale of a little girl who befriends a stray puppy. The mother dog gets caught by dog-nappers who sell their catch to the local dog food market.
So the next time you sit down with your Thai friends and you are offered some 'dried beef' you might want to ask them if it is really beef, or one of man's best friends.
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First published in June 2006 in stickmanbangkok.com
This Article has been viewed 3,676 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)who cares about this guy and his wife
I don't know why you are connecting dog eating some place else to Thailand...Thai people don't eat dog... The movie you saw just simply a stupid movie...Thailand people do eat dogs they have a dog slaughter house and they believe if they torture the dog before they kill it tastes better, in fact in countries like Korea, Phillippenes, China and Thailand dogs are skinned alive because they say they get a better cut of meat. As far as I am concerned it is barbaric for people to do that to any animal but then these people are not compasionate like British people they are horrible people. Although we do have people in our country who are cruel to animals but maybe not as bad as these people.In a Chinese restuarant dog is on the menu and if you want dog you are taken to pick the dog you want then they skin it alive and cook it for you.Sooo...if you're not British, you're a barbarian? Do you know what barbarian originally meant? Then you might know the irony of the situation.
I am physically ill after reading this article. How could the author casually speak of killing "mans best friend" without telling the person it is wrong to kill his dog and eat it. Are people that horrible to animals just to sit by and watch it happen? What kind of world do we live in, and where does it stop!First off, because of my love for dogs, especially the skinning them alive comment, I can see your hatred towards these people. However, we eat cows, pigs and other animals. If you have ever been to an american slaughter house and seen how we treat and kill our animals, its pretty vile in itself. Just because dogs are cute and friendly to us, what makes them any different than another animal. Pigs are supposedly much more intelligent and make excellent companions, and we slaughter them too. We are all hypocrites... bottom line.I totally agree, I mean. I know dogs are "a man's best friend" but that's because we're nice to them, so they like us. If we were nice to pigs they'd make good friends. If we're nice to ANY animal, they'll make good friends.
Some people are such hypocrites. It's okay to eat cows because they're "grown" to become slaughtered, but it's not okay to eat dogs because they're not supposed to be eaten? Wow. People these days. I'm a total doglover & I think it's pretty weird to eat dog. But I'm not going to STOP people which enjoy it. Just because I understand how they think. We eat Cows, pigs, chickens, fish. All types of animals! But when it comes to dog, it's suddenly not alright because apparently :man's best friend?Dogs are sentient creatures. They feel emotions like us humans, only on a primitive scale. Also when you think about it logically dog eating is a part of Asian culture ( some Asians) and no where else. It is very hard to harvest animals to be eaten due to the mountainous nature of Asian landscape. Therefore whatever animals were available were eaten. Due to dogs being sentient creatures I'm sure that any culture would choose to kill cows, chickens etc instead as long as they were in abundance. It isn't natural bottom line. Also your just talking about it. Try watching a dog get skinned alive compared to a chicken getting it's head cut off then talk.
What's wrong with eating dogs?
I know North Americans and European love dogs as cute pets, but in some countries, that's just absurd! They see dogs are ugly, dirty, little freeloaders (and a useless luxury).
Each culture have different point of views. For example, Hindus think the cow is sacred...Yet we still eat lotsa steak, right?
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