An Thit Cho (Eating Meat of Dog)
My sight is blurry when I wake up. I feel my back and my first steps
totter. I am not 25 anymore. The time I have on the planet is short,
so this week I have decided to eat dog. Today was the day.
Since arriving in Vietnam, eating dog has been on my mind. Would I eat
it? When would I eat it? Where? What would it taste like? Will I like
it? Will I get sick? Dog-eating thoughts were on my mind more than
ever this morning. The invitation to eat dog for lunch came from Hung,
my Vietnamese language teacher. Up until this week, no one invited me
to eat dog. I never wanted to order it off a menu. I never decided to
specifically go to a dog meat restaurant. I merely thought about it
sometimes. I never had to decide.
While taking groggy steps to the kitchen, I contemplated the dog I
would eat. How big would it be? What cut would I eat? Would it taste
like chicken? I open the door and walk to the espresso machine. I load
it, give it a jerk to the right, and press a button. Will the dog meat
have any hair on it? Creamy espresso pumps into a rice bowl. I splash
in New Zealand milk. In another rice bowl, I pour muesli, yogurt,
raisins, and cashews. The rest of Hanoi's rice bowls in the AM are
full of noodles in steaming beef broth.
I go out and sit at the garden table. I stare at a pack of Vinataba
and a bottle of Georges Duboeuf left over from last night. I gotta
quit this today. I gotta quit that today. I gotta go to the gym today.
I'm gonna eat dog today. It's the usual mental routine. The one we all
have before getting into traffic on the way to work. Every bite of
imported Swiss muesli and California Sun Maid Raisins tasted important
and safe. Every sip of espresso was more hyggelig (Danish for "cozy")
than the next.
Monday after class, I got the invitation from Hung to eat dog. Now I
was accountable. Will I or won't I. How could I say no? I could pass,
but it might be rude. So at first I just said, "Oh?" Hung began to
explain the details of our lunch date with dog. Meanwhile I'm
thinking: "Another time. I'm too busy this week?" No those excuses
won't work. "I don't like dog?" Can't say that, I never ate it.
Curious I am. No, curious and disgusted. Curious. Disgusted.
Curious…I came out of my deep thought and replied, "OK, your house,
Wednesday?"
Today is the day. I pray it's not green or served with eggs. I
finished my Security Breakfast, and headed to the study in the main
house of my borrowed French villa to begin work projects. In no time,
I was Skyped by a colleague and summoned to a meeting in the office. I
did the office thing, and Hung picked me up at 11:45, to take me to
his house, to eat dog, to eat the dog, to eat a dog. To eat a happy,
tail wagging, furry little animal.
We dodged trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, cute little
dogs, dust clouds, uniformed school children, skinny cats, rivers of
slimy green water, piles of broken bricks, open trenches, and other
routine obstacles on our three-kilometer scooter ride to his home in
the suburbs.
Just inside his front door, there it was. On a huge stainless steel
platter was The Meat. I could not take my eyes off it. I removed shoes
and socks, in Vietnamese style, and stepped up to the living room in
bare feet. The scrawny family kitten was meowing incessantly and
trying to jump up into the room. Hung brushed him away, and stepped in
after me. He turned on the TV. It sits under a family altar loaded
with urns, plastic fruit, bottles of Johnny Walker, and flowerpots
crammed with bent, dreadlock looking sticks of burned incense. Rocky
II began playing on HBO below. Next to the altar, orange and white
fish paced back and forth in a gurgling fish tank.
We sat on the floor around the platter. On the side were three rice
bowls, a bottle of Vietnamese vodka, a plate of fermented shrimp sauce
with red chilies, a pile of chopsticks, and an unplugged rice cooker.
The kitten began meowing louder. On the platter: four bowls: a bowl of
lemon grass sticks and leafy herbs, a bowl of dog stew, a bowl of
boiled dog rib cuts, a bowl of dog liver sausages. Everything a
purplish dark brown. All sitting directly on the living room floor,
the typical Vietnamese dining place.
Hung's father ate with us. He kept putting things in my bowl. Things I
would not select on my own. I smiled and slowly chewed. The kitten
jumped up into the room and began approaching the dog meat. Thank God
for the vodka. I took refills; they never finished the first glass.
The more I drank the easier it got. Until I started thinking about
what I was eating. Suddenly, I had a gag reflex. Hung swept the kitten
back out the door. Oh, no! Wait. I can do this, I can do this! Dog is
just another animal, it's no different from eating any meat. It tastes
kinda good. It's a bit greasy, but not as bad as the pork ears we had
two weeks ago. I boldly refilled my own rice bowl.
OK, the vodka kicked in. The kitten jumped back in to the room,
meowing louder than ever, creeping toward the food. I suggested we
listen to some music while we watch TV. If I had enough distraction, I
could eat more dog and not offend my host. Hung swept the kitten out
again. This time, he picked up some meat with his chopsticks and
tossed it out the door, down the steps and out of site. Suddenly the
kitten stopped meowing. The cat was eating the dog. That's not how it
works in the "Farmer in the Dell." At this point, I could not eat
anymore, too many just plain crazy things were happening. I was full,
anyway. "It was delicious, but no, thank you, I can not eat another
bite. Really, though, I did indeed like it."
After lunch, I felt like I went through some rite of passage. Hung
said during lunch, "When you start to love eating dog, then you will
be Vietnamese." Of course, I want to be Vietnamese, I really do. I
just don't know if I can do dog again. It's really only a mental
thing. It actually tastes quite good. Ngon qua! (Very delicious!)
After lunch, we listened to music for twenty minutes and relaxed, and
then we started language lessons up in another room. Meanwhile, in the
living room, Hung's mother kneeled in the spot where we ate the dog,
faced the altar, and began praying fervently to the urns filled with
the ashes of family ancestors. Hung's dad went to take a nap on the
second floor. The now full kitten was sleeping peacefully underneath
the fish tank.
Later that night, I went to Jenny's to spend some time with her aunt
and mother. I asked them if they had eaten dog during their visit to
Vietnam. They casually said no, and smirked a little. I told them with
a straight face that I ate dog for lunch. "Not really!?" they laughed.
I changed the subject without answering...
--------------------
HANOI by the Numbers:
Country: Vietnam
Population: 4.1 million
Elevation: 19 feet
Size: 1200 square miles
Average Number of Days With Precipitation: 169 days
Average January Temperature: 62 degrees F
Average July Temperature: 85 degrees F
Quick Facts:
Major Industries: machinery, IT, electronic, metallic products,
textiles, leather, wood, chemicals
Electricity: 220 volts, 50 Hz; standard two-pin plug
Time Zone: GMT/UTC +7
Country Dialing Code: 84
Area Code: 4
Did You Know?
Hanoi became the capital of Vietnam in the 7th century and has been
occupied by both the French and Japanese throughout its history.
Orientation:
Hanoi is still the capital of Vietnam and is located on the right bank
of the Red River in the northern area of the country. The city is
approximately 85 miles inland from the South China Sea.
http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/03/9/dogs.catseatenAsia903.html
Vietnam dog and cat eating statistics.
The only statistics ANIMAL PEOPLE found pertaining to dog and cat
eating in Vietnam were from news accounts of individual restaurant
sales in Hanoi during Tet, a seven-day holiday during which dog
consumption peaks.
There was also a mention that dogs are usually eaten only during the
second half of each lunar month, and even then at a relatively low
level compared to Tet.
Some analysis can be done from this data, crude as it is.
If 300 dog meat restaurants in Hanoi sell 120 dogs per day during Tet,
as the news coverage indicates, Hanoi consumption during Tet would be
252,000.
If the Hanoi restaurants sell five dogs per day during the second half
of each lunar month the rest of the year, total annual Hanoi
restaurant consumption of dogs would be 503,250.
If home consumption of dogs is as high, about a million dogs might be
eaten in Hanoi per year.
Hanoi has about four million people, Saigon has 4.6 million, and
Haiphong, the third largest city in Vietnam, has 1.7 million. If dogs
are eaten at the same rate in Saigon, where dog-eating was not
prominent during the Vietnam War, and in Haiphong, total urban
consumption would be about 2.6 million a year.
Vietnam has 81 million human residents, but the rural majority
probably cannot afford to eat dogs as often as city dwellers. Among
the many Vietnamese ethnic groups, only the Montegnard were well-known
for dog-eating during the war years.
This may not mean anything currently relevant, however, since the U.S.
military presence in Vietnam ended 28 years ago. If all of Vietnam
eats dogs at the projected Hanoi rate, total consumption would be 20
million per year. More likely, since Hanoi is the center of government
and fairly affluent by Vietnamese standards, without the
westernization that occurred in Saigon, Hanoi may account for from
half to a third of all the dog-eating in the country.
Projecting all urban dog-eating at the Hanoi level and rural
dog-eating at 10% as high produces an estimate of total consumption at
four to five million dogs per year. That might be credible--although
the actual balance of consumption by region may be quite different.
Cat-eating is illegal in Vietnam, since a healthy cat population is
officially deemed essential to control rice-eating rodents, but
sporadic accounts of raids on cat-meat restaurants indicate that
cat-eating continues--like most vices--at a usually inconspicuous
level. --Researched by Kim Bartlett, with analysis by Merritt Clifton