There are cultures in which folks eat dog. Hell, I’ve heard from some Americans who ate dog, and they said it was wonderful, and that they’ve never looked at people’s pets in the same way.
This leads to a question. Do different breeds of dog taste differently from others? Or is it a matter of the cut of meat, or what the dog was fed? What kind of dogs are usually cooked in traditional dog cuisine?
I thought it was “Cat:the other white meat” that was enjoyed by most cultures other than ours.
It was my understanding that puppies were/are considered the most savory.
(Note: if this topic had been posted by anybody but DB, I wouldn’t have bothered even to open the thread.)
For some info on Dog and Cat eating (and why it isn’t more widely practiced) have a look at anthropologist Marvin Harris’ “Good to Eat”. This has also been published under the title “The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig”, apparently because too many people assumed from the title that it was a cook book. He devotes a whole chapter to dogs and cats, but doesn’t tell you anything about the taste, or what cuts are used.There’s a chapter on horses, too. My favorites are the chapters on eating bugs and on eating people.
According to a friend of mine, who is married to a Chinese, the dogs that are eaten are specially bred for that purpose. He also claims they are quite tasty (to the horror of his Mandarin wife, who is of the opinion that eating dog is a disgusting habit that those primitive Cantonese can keep to themselves).
There’s quite a bit about dogs in Unmentionable Cuisine by Calvin Schwabe. (No recipies, sorry.) There was only two things in that whole book that grossed me out. One of them was that roast suckling puppies were a favorite Roman delicacy. Some Native Americans were (and are?) also great dog-eaters.
An apparently serious discussion of dog eating, including a recipe:
Part 1
And no discussion of dog eating would be complete without hearing the Korean dog soup story from Snopes.
Not a lot of info, Drain.
From http://www.ivu.org/evu/english/news/news964/dogs.html
From http://www.halfmoon.org/dog.html
This one has a recipe:
http://www.yolk.com/magazine/iss2/dog2.html
What appears to be a message board with a Korean focus:
http://www.saram.net/web3/messages/102572.html
This page on Hawaiian Food and Culture mentions cooking dogs:
http://www.mauiflowie.com/hawaiiank.html
From a message board:
I need to get back to work.
Speaking of the Swiss, one of their traditional dishes is Pfeffer Fuchs [spelling?] or “peppered fox.”
A few years ago, I saw a game cookbook that the Canadian Government put out. Included were recipies for preparing wolf and coyote (not to mention lynx and muskrat). I suppose the flavor would be about the same.
Dog is eaten in northern Viet Nam. I’ve been to the country several times, but only to the south, so I’ve seen very little of the practice. It pretty much falls under the category of things I’d rather not know about anyway. However, I have heard that dog meat is flavored with ginger, and the northerners seems to think it’s very tasty that way. The cut probably isn’t so important, because Vietnamese food is usually just a small amount of meat mixed with vegetables and rice. They tend to prefer meat with tendons and cartilage still attached though, so they probably like cuts near the ribs and joints.
As far as different breeds go … until recently there only seemed to be one breed of dog in Viet Nam. It was medium sized, with sandy brown fur, pointed snout, and floppy ears. Some people kept them as pets, but for the most part they just roamed the streets eating scraps. Recently I’ve seen people with different breeds, presumably imported. I’m not sure if any gourmet northerners have attempted a taste test though.
“Dog tastes good, but kinda stringy…better then snake.”–My dad, US Army Special Forces, 1968-72
Lest people get the wrong idea, eating canines is not a common occurrence in Switzerland, and most swiss people would greet the idea of eating a dog or a cat with the same enthusiasm as people in the USA (though in Switzerland you can easily purchase horse meat.)
Personally this thread has inspired me to get to the bottom of a family legend once and for all. My uncle has told me that my grandfather (a farmer in Switzerland) had, at least one occasion, butchered one of the family dogs when it got fat and the family had it for dinner. When I asked my father about it, he was very cagey about answering, and since my uncle is a known prankster I thought he was joking. But I’ll ask again.
Dog isn’t that uncommon in parts of Asia. Any sailor that at at a barbeque stand near the Subic Bay station in Olongopo City has probably eaten dog. The vendors hawk monkey meat but those are lots harder to catch.
Say, Bibliophage, I know you’re the King of the Reference Section an’ all, but I’m afraid I’m gonna have to see a cite for that Swiss “pepper fox” recipe. Checking Google under “pfeffer fuchs” only turns up a Dutch/German food dictionary, which includes “paprika fuchs” but says it’s a synonym for pepperoni. http://www.xs4all.nl/~margjos/pftxtnl.htm
My WAG would be that it’s something that’s actually made with veal but whimsically termed “fox”.
Do different dogs taste dfferent? I would imagine, that there is a very slight difference in taste between the different breeds. Look at how different jack rabbit and domestic taste, or wild turkey vs. domestic. It would probably be similar. I imagine that most of the difference comes from size, a large dog will taste quite different from a small, from fattiness, some dogs are leaner. Of course I think the deciding factor is diet. If a dog eats nothing but garbage, it will have a decidedly “yucky” flavor.
In the Philippines dog is eaten also. I’ve never asked my relatives if theyve eaten it, but i would bet they have at least once. A friend of mine said her cousin was in the Philippines and was served something called “German Meat” turns out it was a german shepherd. I’ve also heard that dog is a bit greasy but good none the less. Another person who i used to talk to in chat from the Philippines said that in Manila, street vendors often have dog meat in their food. Though it’s supposedly illegal, the police over look it because it tastes quite good.
O ye of little faith! (Though I admit I got the spelling wrong.) Calvin Schwabe, Unmentionable Cuisine, p. 173
From the same book:[ul][li]The Aztecs’ primary source of meat was the Mexican Hairless Dog.[/li][li]Hippocrates praised dogmeat as a source of strength.[/li][li]In Europe, dogmeat was traditionally believed to prevent tuberculosis.[/li]The flavor of dogmeat, according to one English observer, is indistinguishable from that of mutton.[/ul]
Padeye
Been there - done that, had no idea it was dog they serve it up on sticks a little like kebab.
Thought it was pork or chicken but I was so blasted I couldn’t tell.
I think I don’t feel well now.
Well, hey, Bubba, I was startin’ to think you didn’t like me any more! (It couldn’t have been that you were just stumped?)
Anyway, thanks, but I still remain just a teeny bit skeptical. I mean, come on, how many foxes could they have available for eating in Switzerland? Let alone have enough to experiment upon and come up with recipes for? How do you know this guy wasn’t just writing this book and he came across this li’l old unsubstantiated anecdote and just sorta decided to stick it in there 'cause it made a good story?
Especially the part about “fresh fox meat”. Where are they gonna get fresh fox meat? Aren’t foxes protected? They’re protected in England. How come the civilized Swiss would have a “tradition” of eating foxes? They haven’t been that desperate for protein that they’d exploit a resource like that.
Just because it’s called “pepper fox” doesn’t mean it has real fox in it. Maybe somebody was pulling his leg. He went out for dinner, saw “pepper fox” on the menu, asked about it, and somebody decided to have some fun with the gullible American. Next thing you know, the gullible American puts it in a book.
Hmm…Haven’t you got another cite? I’m powerful hungry for seconds…
Besides, I’m trying to visualize the Aztec Empire running on a “primary source of meat” like chihuahuas. Not much meat on them critters, maybe a pound, dressed out? What about turkeys? Other poultry? Game? Fish? They raised fish in those canals, saith the National Geographic or NOVA or somebody like that.
Stretching the truth in order to sell books doesn’t count as a lie, exactly, but this here is the Straight Dope, pardner.
A while back, there was a piece on an NPR news show about dog-eating in Korea. The correspondent talked of how everyone in his USA office warned him to ask what he was eating, and of the jokes about barking in the kitchen. After he’d been there for a few days and heard nothing about dogmeat, he asked a Korean colleague about it. The fellow took him to a restaurant that specialized in dog. When he noticed that there were no women in the eatery, the correspondent was told that dog was only eaten as a male potency supplement. He was also assured that the dogs were specifically raised for meat, and weren’t anybody’s stolen Fido.