Man Bites Dog

Everybody I'm sure has heard of other cultures' incomprehensible eating customs. Many times the response is absolute horror. The custom of eating monkeys and rats in Africa is beyond understandability. The Asians prefer cats and dogs which is deplorable to Americans who consider them pets. To help increase understanding of foreign eating customs, I feel obligated to link to this story of dog eating in Korea by fellow blogger Robert Koehler, an expatriate working there as a teacher.

Here's an appetizer from Robert's blog, The Marmot's Hole.

The practice of eating dog meat became a controversial topic circa 1988, when Korea began to come under fire from foreign-based animal rights activists in the period leading up to the Summer Olympic Games held in Seoul that year. Sensitive to the criticism from abroad, the Korean government banned the consumption of dog meat right before the start of the Games. Not that this stopped the diehard from enjoying the fruits of the pooch - dog meat restaurants simply invented new names for the dishes (many of those names are still in use, causing some confusion for the uninitiated), and continued doing a brisk trade.

The period leading up to the 2002 World Cup witnessed a new round of criticism from animal rights activists, this time lead by shitty actress-turned-dog hugger Brigitte Bardot, who attempted to organize an international boycott of Korea over the dog meat issue.

Click the link and read the whole article. It's entertaining and informative.