be aware

Hi All,
I just want to give a kind note of warning for all of you travelling to south korea & vietnam. When visiting a market I hope you have a hard stomach, they butcher dogs and cats horrificly and the sight is awful!!
I honestly would never travel there again, Thailand and Laos are definitely more my cup of tea.
Be careful what you eat as well, South korea also just announced they are going out to hunt for whales again.

A very distraught traveller,
Patricia

Not all of Vietnams markets are slaughter houses for cats and dogs. We saw only one in 2 trips.

I've lived in Korea for 5 years and never once seen an animal being butchered in a market, yes dog is eaten here but it's not that common, most Koreans wil only eat it once in their lives. They would be horrified at the idea of eating cat, and rabbit too for that matter and they find it disgusting that rabbits are eaten in the West.

I think so

Shame they didn't mention China. My local market has a great dog section.

@OP, that's ridiculous. Cats are never butchered in Korean markets. Koreans don't eat cats (there's a very rare tonic made from cats, but chances of you seeing it are close to 0). Dog meat is sold in some of the very old school markets, but it's not always obvious and I've never seen it being butchered. I've lived in Korea over 3 years. I've been living 2 blocks from an old school market for over a year and go shopping there 3-5 times a week.

@Kraziekatie, I always see pigs getting butchered in the markets around me in Korea. A number of the butcher shops will have the pigs hanging on meat hooks behind the counter. They're not salughtered in the markets, but they are definitely butchered there. Rabbits are eaten in Korea, just not that much. There's a restaurant on my block that serves rabbit soup (and boshingtang and other specialties). I wouldn't say dog isn't common. It might not be out in the open, but there's plenty of restaurants around. Lots of people don't eat dog, but a fair number of folks eat it fairly often.

I live in Shinchang, Asan city and unfortunately there is a restaurant that serves dog soup a few meters away from my house and there are also some dogs farms near by. I've heard that some butchers sell cats to those kind of restaurants, of course I don't know if this is true or not. But I've never seen dogs hanging in the markets.

Where is Shinchang? In China? Do you mean XinJiang?

We get cats in my local market too, not all the time... but frequently.

I am happy knowing cats are being eaten!

I draw the line at eating dogs, as they are nice friendly animals!

Does it make any difference that I've only eaten free range dogs?

There is a theory (a very popular one at that) that torturing the dogs before killing them makes the meat more tender and tasty... this is aspect of eating animals that I do not like. I have no problem with eating any animal (I love my meat and I know where it comes from... no hypocrisy here), but I don't adhere to torturing. So free range dogs are fine in my book.

Next question... how do you like the taste of dog meat? How to cook/serve it?

Reminds me of a friend my kids had years ago when we lived on a block of land and raised our animals for meat. He didnt mind eating hand raised animals- he just wanted to know what its name had been.

According to some people we met in Seoul, dogmeat tastes like beef. Personally although I'm a dog lover, I really don't see the difference in eating a dog from eating say a cow or pig, but I detest the thought of any animal being tortured to death for any reason.

Who on earth said dog meat tastes like beef? They must have the palate of a camel's backside. There's no comparison between the 2 meats.

Well obviously the two people I met who said that had palates of a camel's backside - I personally wouldn't know given that I haven't tasted it.

On a side note (and I'm not sure if this is true or not) but some years ago I heard that a couple of Koreans had visited NZ and had bought what they thought was dog meat because of the picture of a dog on the front of the can! It was dogfood obviously.......

I ordered a sweet and sour pork from a back street Chinese joint years ago in Sydney. It definitely wasnt pork so I'm not sure who's poor pet whatever it was ended up on my plate. Tasted bloody awful.

I also remember ordering chicken fried rice in northern Thailand right up near the border with Laos where the local market was selling rats and frogs on sticks. I thought the pieces of chicken with bone didn't look like chicken but just ate it and thought nothing of it until I went to the toilet next to the kitchen and saw them skinning the rats for the food. Christ I felt sick when I saw that but didn't say anything to my husband until ages afterwards as I didn't want him to feel the same.

When I eventually told him he said that he'd suspected the chicken wasn't chicken too but like me was too hungry to worry about it!

Always makes me laugh when people are worried about being served dog or cat meat as a joke. Dog and cat meat is considered a delicacy and is much more expensive than common pork or chicken, so I highly doubt chefs are going to play a clever trick on unsuspecting people.

Yea, I don't believe some Koreans bought a can with a dog on it, assuming it's dog meat. That's just ridiculous. Sounds like an urban legend.
A.) Koreans are very well aware that dog meat is taboo in a lot of the world (including for many Koreans!)
B.) Dog meat is never sold canned. Always fresh.
C.) It'd be pretty obvious it's dog food since it'd be in the pet section. Koreans are plenty familiar with pet ownership.

As for me, I don't see any problem in raising, slaughtering and eating dogs (and I grew up with a dog I loved for 14 years). It's just beating them that seems excessive and cruel.

Well please forgive me hanguk for posting what were obviously two stupid comments.

I'm not quite sure what got into me passing on what was meant to be a remotely funny anecdote about petfood.

@19 tigerstu, couldn't be more true.

As for "Koreans eat dogs" jokes, they're kinda lame and not funny. It just pushes a stereotype that Koreans are uncivilized and dumb (despite there being nothing wrong with eating dog in the first place). Some of the talk about the issue also pushes the idea that all Koreans eat dog, which is far from true. You'll easily find significant amounts of people from a wide variety of standpoints on the issue. There's those that eat dog regularly, sometimes or rarely, not at all but respect the right of others to do so, dislike it and some despise the concept.