Caramba! Dog lovers around the world (well, in the US and Europe anyway) are trying to get Koreans to stop eating dogs. They have even hired FIFA to step in and pressure the Koreans. See the report here:
Imagine what would happen if these annoying people suddenly realized that Thais eat not only dogs but insects as well!
With more than 6,000 restaurants in Korea serving around 1 million dogs a year, it would seem like a really difficult task to stop Koreans who eat dogs. Imagine how much more difficult it would be to prevent Thais from eating their favorite foods.
Although I had lived in Thailand for about 10 years before marrying my current wife, I had only noticed the Thai fondness for insects from a distance. It wasn’t until my wife and I were married in a simple ceremony at her parents’ home in a small village outside of Ubon that I got close to the practice.
We hired a van to drive there taking some of our close friends with us to witness our union and enjoy a fun-filled days in the field. I’m not sure what was served at the reception because there was too much of it and we were happily sipping a couple of cases of Mekhong whiskey and ‘Lao Khao’, the Thai equivalent of moonlight.
The day after the wedding, my new family, and there were dozens of them, took us to the Moon River for a picnic on board floating bamboo rafts. We all sat down anticipating a delicious Bar-BQ and some seafood.
The first course consisted of delicious banana leaves filled with fire ant eggs. Hmm. My friends and I got through that as we watched my new family cuddle with excitement. Then came plates of prawns swimming in alcohol. These guys were jumping and diving in and out of the infusion. Naturally, this dish was called ‘Drunken Prawns’. Fortunately, they were probably so drunk when they slid down our throats that they didn’t mind being eaten. They were quite tasty.
Then came a selection of fried insects, mostly grasshoppers, but I think there were other things in there that looked like roaches too. My Thai hosts assured me that they were very clean roaches harvested from the rice stalks on their farm. Definitely not my cup of tea, thanks, but the Thais chewed them with delight.
The first few times I went back it was very similar. I must say that my Thai family tried valiantly to serve me food that I could actually eat, but they didn’t really know much about country food. My staple while up there used to be omelettes or white bread spread with margarine and instant Nescafe for breakfast. I never eat white bread or drink instant coffee, so aside from my terrible hunger pangs, it was also an expression of my love for my new family that I actually drank it all with a smile on my face.
Since then I have learned to prepare and I always have a cooler full of UHT milk, a pound of butter, fresh coffee beans and some cheese. I keep the cheese until the Thais come out with their fermented fish ‘Pla Ra’. So we both sat there with blissful smiles on our faces and dipped into some incredibly smelly food. Hears! Fair is fair, right?
Pla Ra has to be one of the most disgusting foods of all time to us annoying peasants. It is made by fermenting fish in clay jars buried in the ground. The resulting mess smells as bad as it sounds, but Thais love it. They pile it on their ‘Som Tum’, papaya salad and laugh every time I run out of the room. I have forbidden my wife and cousins to enter the house when they eat. They have to eat it outside, where the terrible stench cannot enter the house. I suppose the sight of an overweight old man vomiting was enough to convince them to obey my banishment order.
I have even heard that Thais eat live monkey brains, although I have never seen it. Apparently they lock the poor monkey in a device under a table with the crown sticking out of a hole in the table. They then take a sharp sword and cut through the crown, sort of like removing the top of a boiled egg. They put in and take out the brain that is still alive and eat it. Possibly the reason I have never seen this is because it is rumored that many of the diners suffer some kind of terrible stroke and die afterwards. So I guess Karma really works.
I started off talking about eating dogs, and I must apologize for the digression, but you must admit that eating insects, drunken prawns, monkey brains, and Pla Ra is definitely on par with eating dog.
My first contact with eating dogs was in the Philippines, where it is also a delicacy. The habit may have arisen during the Mark years, when everyone was so poor that they would eat whatever they could get their hands on. I don’t think there are any monkeys left anywhere in the country either, because they were all eaten.
Be that as it may, some of them also love to eat dogs. Once, one of my Filipino friends took me to the deepest depths of the island of Negros. He lived high up in the mountains in a small town miles from anywhere.
The first morning there I got up and went out. There was his beautiful black dog lounging around with a very serious head injury, obviously caused by a heavy blow with a blunt instrument. I called my friend who was reeling (we had been doing justice to a ‘San Mig’ case the night before). He took one look at his favorite dog, growled, walked in, and came back with a revolver in hand. He shot the dog right there.
That was shocking enough, but then he took it and growled at me to follow him. We went out to a shed at the back of the house where he hung it from the rafters by the back legs. He cut the skin around the ankles, or whatever they are called, in a dog, made a cut on the chest and belly, and then removed the skin. He then gutted it and began carving it.
After the initial shock of seeing what he was doing, I overcame my apprehension and asked him what he was doing as I watched him. I had recently come from Australia where all of our slaughter is done well before we see the meat in sterilized store displays.
“We’re going to eat him. It’s a shame he’s dead, but one of my neighbors obviously hit him on the head and would have taken him to eat if you hadn’t come out and scared him. So why waste a good dog? ? “
When the dog got dressed (I miss using that word when he was actually undressed, but that’s the English language for you, right?), We took him home and he cooked a large curry. When he was ready, he invited the neighbors to a party and we all settled in.
What did it taste like? Well, I think it had a strong copper flavor. It was a bit difficult to tell due to the curry, but it definitely left a coppery aftertaste. There was nothing special about the meat. It wasn’t tough or stringy, and it wasn’t that tender. It was just meat.
Why did I eat it?
Well, I’ve had snake, crocodile, bear, wild turkey and kangaroo tail soup, why not? I wanted to see what it was like. Later, when I returned to Baguio, north of Manila, I also had some sun-dried dog meat, a bit like the dried meat Thai people serve here. In fact, it tastes the same, so who knows? Perhaps the jerky is actually dog meat.
Some Thais also like to eat dog meat. I saw a Thai movie the other night called “Khao Niaw Moo Ping”. It was the story of a girl who befriends a stray puppy. The mother is caught by nappers selling her catch at the local dog food market.
So the next time you sit down with your Thai friends and they offer you some “dried meat”, you may want to ask them if it really is beef or if it is one of man’s best friends.
