I never knew that summer was the best time to eat a hot dog….
"Dangogi-jang (dog meat soup) is becoming popular even among Koreans living abroad and foreigners as well," it said.
Dog meat is enjoyed in both North and South Korea. But while dog meat restaurants in the South are assuming a low-profile because of international criticism, in the North dangogi cuisine is a source of pride and a mark of national identity.
Eating dog meat beats summer heat, North Korea says | The Courier-Mail
27/07/2009 at 4:47 pm Permalink
The line between nutrition and medicine is a lot blurrier in Asia than in the West, IMO. I’m still trying to figure out which soups and dishes I should be ordering when it’s raining and when it’s not.
That said, the whole dangogi debate is also confusing to me. I have one Korean friend who was rather adamant that I join him for some boshintang (“good health soup,” *cough* *cough*) a while back. So I did. Another Korean friend was shocked that a fellow countryman would do something so detrimental to the stature of the nation, etc.
Poor people can’t be picky and choosy about their sources of protein. But South Korea is a wealthy nation now, so go figure.
27/07/2009 at 8:13 pm Permalink
Just to point out, the association between health and eating ‘appropriate’ foods is found just as strongly in the West as it is in Asia. Systems of ‘humoral theory’, as described within medical anthropology, show a large number of cultural examples within Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. The general idea is that having the body get too hot or too cold will lead to illness, so a counter needs to be eaten that will prevent this. Or, if one is already sick, the remedy will involve taking medication / eating food that is has the opposite property of the illness. (Unless one is talking about Dominica, which has both ‘neutral’ illnesses and ‘neutral’ cures.)
As for the original article, would have been nice were it published on 14 July, or at least made SOME mention of 삼복 (sambok) as the reason for eating certain foods at this time of year.