Dogging*

* Animal lovers and/or my mother might want to give this post a miss.

"He was so mad he went home and kicked the dog, and then he ate him." - Jay Leno on Korean speed skater Kim Dong Sung, who was disqualified from the 2002 winter Olympics. Last year, while playing Trivial Pursuit with a couple of Korean students we got a question about the above quote. I was mortified, but the two Korean girls that were playing the game didn't seem bothered at all. What I thought was incredibly offensive they weren't the least bit bothered by.

If you asked someone who'd never visited Korea what they knew about the country, I'm pretty sure that the consumption of dog meat would be among the first things mentioned, even if only in jest. I wondered before I got here whether it might be a dying tradition unfairly used as a stick to beat Korea with, but it's definitely still very much alive here, as well as in other parts of East Asia, in particular China. While it's stigmatized by Western society, in Korea it's just another part of the cuisine, though considered a bit of a delicacy and traditionally eaten on certain holidays here.

Personally I don't have a problem with eating anything that isn't endangered. I think if you eat one animal, especially one that has been raised for the purpose of providing food, then you may as well eat them all. I'm also very curious to try different meats, so when my friend Nick came to visit and also expressed an interest in trying some dog meat, we set out on a mission to find some.

Not really knowing where to go to sample some, I asked my co-teacher. She didn't know, so asked a few of the other staff members for me. This caused a reasonable sized ripple of excitement in the staff room. Westerners going to eat dog meat is clearly not an everyday occurrence. I think all in all everyone was quietly impressed with our alimentary adventure, but it also shows that Koreans are not entirely unaware of the views of foreigners towards this practice.

We worked up a bit of an appetite with a bike ride to the Weoljongsa temple up in the national park, and then headed out to the restaurant. We'd been advised to go for a dish called "Jongol", which I committed to memory with the maxim "Jongol is massive" (apologies). The restaurateur looked a little unsure when I ordered it, pointing at the menu and saying "Dog-guh" while looking at me questioningly. I assured him I knew what I was ordering and he shrugged and went off to prepare it.

We sat down, and were soon presented with a large bowl of stock, with a pile of what looked to me like rib bones, meat, green onions and sesame leaves, covered in seasoning. We started up the burner, and gave it a stir. The waitress recommended a fine vintage soju to complement it and off we went.

"Wicked...Wicked..."

So what's it like? The most obvious point of comparison is lamb. It's similar coloured for one, and has almost identical shades of pink and brown according to how well cooked it is. The taste is very similar to lamb too, though I'd say a little less sweet and without the fatty richness than lamb has. In the stew it was also very tender, though I don't know if it would work so well grilled or barbecued on its own. All in all though, it got pretty positive reviews from both sides of our table.

Is that a guilty look Nick?

That definitely isn't.

It was only on the way to Seoraksan National Park the following day that I found the following passage in my Rough Guide: "However, any fears of Koreans chowing down on an alsation or border collie should be quelled, almost all dog meat comes from a scraggly mongrel breed colloquially known as the "shit-dog"...even so, the poor conditions that the animals are often kept in, and the continuing - and occasionally verified - stories of dogs being clubbed to death to tenderise the meat, are good reasons to avoid this kind of meat." I'm not sure quite what to make of this. I've seen dogs being kept by people for meat and they're not scraggly, and certainly not scrawny. They are usually kept in very small cages though. There's also some fairly unsavoury footage of dog farms on Youtube, but then I doubt there's much difference between them and farms for any other breed of animal here, or most other places in the world. If you've seen Food Inc., then. you should probably question where the meat in anything you eat comes from. Anyway, it's not quite enough to make me go running from this with my tail between my legs (so, so sorry).

In conclusion then, dog meat is pretty tasty, and was well worth trying, but on the basis of what I've seen and read since, I don't think I'll be eating it every week, at least not until they get some alsation on the menu anyway.

More holiday stories next time!

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