South Koreans replace Coke with dog meat juice at World Cup soccer stadium.

April 26, 2002 12:30 PM

South Koreans replace Coke with dog meat juice at World Cup soccer stadium. Maybe I'm missing something in the translation. Related story on World Cup dog meat burgers here (in Japanese, sorry). Rough translation on FG.
posted by curiousg (18 comments total)

UPDATE: As always, Ananova comes through with the real scoop. It's "dog meat soup" not juice. Apologies. Stalls offering free steamed meat, soup, sandwiches and hamburgers will be set up at the country's 10 World Cup stadiums. Shame on you Hindustan Times!
posted by curiousg at 12:43 PM on April 26, 2002

Really, though, what's the big deal? Different cultures have different tastes. Koreans eat dog, Chinese eat rat, French and other Europeans eat horse, we eat cow (which is sacrilege in India) and Africans eat monkey. Big deal -- it all depends on where you're from.

It's not like Koreans are slaughtering the family pet -- the dogs are raised like sheep or pigs or cows are here in the States. Ask a cattle farmer how much attachement he has to his stock.
posted by me3dia at 12:48 PM on April 26, 2002

The thought of doggy soup is somehow less distressing than the thought of doggy boullion cubes.
posted by groundhog at 1:17 PM on April 26, 2002

Hmm, the Hindustan Times link seems down. CNN also has a related AP story.
posted by curiousg at 1:21 PM on April 26, 2002

Just a brief blip, I guess. The Hindustan Times is fine now.
posted by curiousg at 1:23 PM on April 26, 2002

Ewwwww. Can't they just serve khlav kalash, and crab juice?
posted by chuq at 1:29 PM on April 26, 2002

oh brother. who cares? eating boshintang is not something to be ashamed of, or proud of. I can't believe such a big deal is being made of it. the world cup is about soccer. and i just hope my countrymen do a little better this time around.
posted by jojo at 1:47 PM on April 26, 2002

I think it's interesting that they made them get rid of all of the "Dog" foods before the '88 Olympics, but boshintang (Dog Soup) made it through because none of the signs were in English. It's amazing that they're able to be so overt about it for the World Cup.
posted by fnirt at 2:25 PM on April 26, 2002

On the news in Japan last night, they reported that, although tix are sold out in Japan, 400,000 tickets remain for games in Korea, including thousands of tickets for the 3rd place game. These will be available via internet at www.fifa-tickets.com

I'll kill myself if Portugal doesn't win.
posted by planetkyoto at 2:34 PM on April 26, 2002

I'll kill myself if Portugal doesn't win.

Really? That seems a bit over-dramatic to me.

I find it oddly fitting that you eat hot dogs at a match (sorry couldn't help myself), but what does dog taste like? (Please don't say "Chicken")
posted by cx at 3:31 PM on April 26, 2002

...Chinese eat rat...

Really?
posted by drang at 4:25 PM on April 26, 2002

I see the point that eating a dog is really no different from eating other animals, but I've seen video of how some of the dogs there are butchered and it's gruesome. Maybe what I saw is not typical of how they normally do it, but in the video, the guy didn't even bother to kill the dog before he started slicing it up. Dogs were also domesticated differently than "livestock", but rather to work cooperatively with humans--forming a very different bond than with an animal such as a cow.
posted by ArkIlloid at 4:39 PM on April 26, 2002

Dogs were also domesticated differently than "livestock", but rather to work cooperatively with humans--forming a very different bond than with an animal such as a cow.

doesn't look like that was the case in korea, does it.

...Chinese eat rat...

Really?

I'm kind of confused by your link actually since it's about a restaurant in china dedicated to serving rat - I guess you were pointing out that it's considered exotic? I couldn't find a link but I do remember an article in the New Yorker a year ago maybe in which the author psyched himself up to try the local cuisine in the village he was staying in, which was, you guessed it, Rat. Like this article said, there isn't much meat on them, but they offered different sized rats & he went for it. Anyway, according to that, in mountain villages the rats are clean animals who live at the foot of the mountains. The problem isn't that they're dirty but that they're small. Like eating squirrel in the south, maybe.
posted by mdn at 8:13 AM on April 27, 2002

I think Guy Clark said everything that ever needed to be said on this topic right here
posted by jonmc at 8:31 AM on April 27, 2002

Hmmmm. I think I'm seeing a way of managing Stanford's squirrel problem.

Exotic restaurant.

Or residence cafeteria.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:31 AM on April 27, 2002

Shame on you Hindustan Times!

You know you're scraping the bottom of the barrel when Avanova is a step up.
posted by rodii at 7:24 PM on April 27, 2002

what does dog taste like?

Gamy, but not bad. The smell is rather strong and somewhat unpleasant, though.

Oh, and this quote from the FG link - "...current deep-rooted popularity of the traditional dish..." - is pure nonsense. Boshintang is marginal at best these days. Most people here (women in particular, who tend to be less concerned with the mythical 'stamina-enhancing' properties of the meat) have never even tried it.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:11 PM on April 27, 2002

When I was in Ecuador I sampled Guinea pigs. They are called coi (pronounced kwee), and the indigenous people raise them as livestock. While the cooking methods are somewhat primitive (toss them whole, fur and all, into boiling oil) the meat is not bad at all. It tastes exactly like rabbit, which they sometimes use as a substitute when they have guests that might find the coi distasteful. Interesting thread.
posted by dr_emory at 5:56 PM on April 28, 2002