So much for Fido as food at Olympics ...
Posted: Friday, July 11, 2008 10:51 AM
It’s official: There’ll be no fettuccini al fido on the menu in Beijing during the Olympics. Nor will the adventurous tourist be able to get nice beagle with lox, a bowl of Irish setter stew, a water spaniel cress salad or German shepherd’s pie.
This is the news from Chinese tourism officials, who have told Beijing restaurants to take dog meat off their menus for the duration of the Games. This is the same order that Korean officials gave restaurants in Seoul during the 1988 Olympics.
For this, I am grateful for two reasons. The most obvious is that I view dogs as wonderful pets and great friends, which makes the thought of eating them as repulsive as the thought of dining on leg of Aunt Clara. The other is that I’m just the sort of lunk who would probably end up sampling a nice Bowser bisque if I spotted it on a menu.
I’m not proud of that. I’m just the sort of person who likes trying the native food. I’m not as adventurous as Andrew Zimmern, the host of the Travel Channel’s “Bizarre Foods.” You will never, for example, get me to eat an eyeball, but I’m game for anything from grasshoppers (the shell gets stuck in your teeth) to cow’s lung stew (delicious) to bull’s testicles (also delicious) and most things in between.
I also remind myself that dogs are viewed differently in different cultures, many of which view them as a tasty and valuable source of protein. And lest you say it’s not something Americans would ever get into, I will only point out that the Lewis and Clark expedition preferred dog meat procured from the local Indian tribes to fresh salmon during the winter they spent in the Pacific Northwest.
So I won’t criticize other cultures for their eating habits, and that includes the various tribes that used to believe in the salubrious benefits of dining on dead relatives and neighbors, not to mention enemies slain in battle. I don’t share their tastes, but I don’t see much difference between killing competing tribes and eating them, too. It’s the killing I object to, and if you eliminate that, cannibalism becomes a difficult practice to follow.
Anyway, just because there will be no canine canapés doesn’t mean there won’t be a whole lot of adventurous eating available in Beijing. The late-night fare at the city’s popular food stands apparently is beyond exotic.
If you’re curious and also have a strong stomach, check out some of the snack food that vendors will grill for you on the spot and serve up skewered on a stick.
You can get scorpions, snake-sicles, fried crickets, starfish-on-a-stick, silkworm pupae, brains, lizards, frogs -- if it hops out from under a stone, they probably serve it. I’m not sure about the pupae poppers (they just look gross) or the scorpions (it’s a texture thing). But I’m sure there’s a snake in my future and probably a tentacle or two -- hold the brains, thank you very much.
One of the great joys of travel is learning that not everybody does things the way you do. There’s been a lot of angst expressed in some quarters over the fact that Chinese toilets are squat-down affairs instead of the sit-down commodes we think of as the only civilized way to do, well, you know. My attitude is, so what? We used to go that way frequently when nature called during an excursion in the woods. It’s not that big a deal, and my advice to anyone who thinks otherwise is to get over it.
Different doesn’t mean wrong. That’s another lesson travel will teach you. You may be shocked or even repulsed by a local custom, but if you spend some time in a country and get to know the people, it doesn’t take long to discover that they are friendly and warm and moral and very much like you are. In travels to about 40 countries, I’ve never been in one where I didn’t like the locals. Nor have I been to one where I didn’t learn something that has made my life better.
