So they are actually going to be vending dog gravy at the world cup soccer matches.  First of all, what the hell is dog gravy?  I mean a drink made from meat?  I don't know of anything like that.  It's not milk obviously, but there's nothing like drinkable cow or pork or turkey or anything like that in the US.  I guess it's some sort of meaty-soup, but they talk about it like it's an alternative to soda, so it's served cold?  That sounds just horrible, dog or cow or pig or whatever the source is.  Can you imagine meat-flavor soda?

Second of all, Asian countries will eat any damn thing that's made of meat.  Dolphin, whale, dog, snake, rhinoceros, shark; they don't give a shit about any of that animal rights or endangered species stuff.  If it's tasty in stir fry, it's on the menu.  There were various articles about the popularity of whale blubber burgers in Japan just recently on Yahoo and elsewhere. Especially if the meat is exotic, and they can pretend it's an aphrodisiac, like ground lion balls, or elephant tusk, or shark fin.

Also, is it not the height of hypocrisy for Westerners to worry about someone eating dog, when we slaughter millions of cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, buffalo, etc?  What, since dogs can fetch and wag their tails they are somehow off the menu?  It's meat, on the hoof or on the paw, and if the animals are treated in a more or less humane fashion before they are slaughtered, there's nothing to object to, unless you are not eating meat yourself.  And probably not wearing any leather, or using anything made with animal products.

The recent South Park episodes are pretty lame, but one from this season was about the boys breaking in and saving a bunch of baby cows from being slaughtered for veal made this point.  They are saving baby cows, and meanwhile eating fried chicken, and craving burgers.  Humans have no problem eating adult animals, or having them killed for their furry exterior, but baby animals are cute, so people complain about that.  Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal had it backwards.

I'm not a dog person at all.  The only one I've ever been around much was Sadie, a hunting dog my grandparents had when I was a kid.  She was a bird dog, and lived in a kennel out back in their large yard, never allowed in the house, but was very friendly and playful out in the yard.  And could do this amazing (to me, when I was like 7) trick of instantly finding me anywhere in their yard.  I'd hide behind a tree while Sadie was playing with my grandpa, and he'd say, "Where's Eric?  Find Eric, Sadie!" and she'd wheel around and pelt headlong to the tree I was hiding behind, finding me in like 3 seconds.  It was a big yard too, probably 20x40 yards.  I might be exaggerating a bit, since I only know their yard as I remember it when I was about 9, but it was quite large, in any event.

My point is that I'm not a dog person, and don't especially like them, and I tend to hate barking noisy dogs with a passion.  I've not had a pet cat for years, but did my whole youth, and I always wanted to pet any cats I saw, and I currently pet a friendly one by my mom's house, or the one I see by the mail box at my apartment here. On the other hand, I have no desire at all to pet dogs, or interact with other people's dirty, potentially-rabid mutts.

That being said, you could almost make a case for not eating dogs.  They can be trained to save human life, are friendly pack animals, will protect children, can be used to haul loads, seeing eye dogs, etc.  They are intelligent and highly-domesticated and naturally gregarious. Cats on the other hand, are soft and can be friendly, but generally speaking, they're hardly domesticated.  They just don't have enough meat on their bones for Koreans to bother making strip steaks out of them.

You'll note that I'm primarily a vegetarian, for health reasons. I've not had any cow in 7 or 8 years, though I do very occasionally have some pig.  I'd been eating chicken and fish semi-regularly for the last few years, but I've quit chicken this year, so just fish when I eat out, maybe every 2 or 3 weeks.  I do it for health reasons, there are so many chemicals and toxins and antibiotics and amphetamines and other poisons in animal feed, and in the animals themselves, I don't consider it a good idea to put that into my body.  But I'm not like a zealot about it, I don't really care about the animals dying or other people eating it, other than that it makes you fat and slow and have heart attacks that raise my insurance premiums.  Which is why I find it funny that people object to dogs being used for a food, but not cows or pigs or turkeys, etc.

May 18, 2002

I've been interested in the Koreans eating dogs or not story for a while, with various news items pre-World Cup about them serving dog soup at games, while other articles claim dog eating is illegal in the country.  By far the most thorough article on the subject you're going to see is here.  It's very tasty.

Korean food may well be the next wave after Thai or Vietnamese, but for the time being it remains too "ethnic" for most Americans. It uses too many unusual ingredients, such as acorns, bracken, organ meats, bellflower roots, mung beans, dried fish, and pine needles. It is too spicy: Gochujang, hot red-pepper paste, has not yet caught on in a market that prefers jalapeño or Scotch bonnet. And ultimately Korean food is too pungent. Americans are so wary of the strong odor of Korean pickled cabbage (kimchi) that the Korean corporation Doosan is developing an odorless variety for the U.S. market.

Other ethnic groups have experienced the same problem. At the turn of the twentieth century, when Italians were not yet considered "white," their food was shunned for its liberal use of garlic and strong cheeses. Jewish and African-American preferences for certain parts of animals (pigs' feet, derma, chitlins) were derided as backwards, often by status-conscious Jews and blacks. It took a century before Chinese-Americans became established enough for Chinese food to wend its way into the culinary mainstream. Indeed, it was once far more common for urban mythologizers to claim that Chinatown boasted no strays.

May 27, 2002

Yes, I have to post every news item I see about Koreans eating puppies.  No, I'm not sure why, though I do wish I had been collecting them all on a page somewhere, it would be an interesting compilation.  I've you've missed my previous comments on it, I don't really have an objection; it's hypocritical for Westerners to eat cows and goats and pigs and birds and just about everything else, but for some reason pretend dogs are off the menu. I just find it interesting since it's a controversial topic. Which pretty well sums up the news items you'll see around here.