Dog Shoes for Idiots

On a recent trip to Yangshuo China, a beautiful mountainous scenic spot not far from the infamous Guilin, my family and I took a great Chinese cooking class. We learned to make five local Chinese dishes that both overwhelmed the senses and overwhelmed the bowels. My favorite dish combined two glorious ingredients, beer and fish, into one delectable meal cleverly called beer fish. But I’m sure this is not what interests most of you, so I’ll get to it.

Things are different in China. Food typically still looks like what it came from. Fish is served at restaurants with the head still attached, as is Duck. 3 cups chicken usually includes one cup chicken feet, beak, and face. Pig ear and hoof cannot be disguised by sauce or presentation. And naturally, dog and horse are still considered delicacies in certain parts, reminders of simpler and more romantic times before ‘civilization’ squelched the human spirit.

But those of you out there who love dogs would be happy to hear that the Chinese don’t eat all dogs, just ones that look like Dingoes. They taste a bit like duck we were told, only gamier. I’m not sure what is gamy about these dogs, as I highly doubt they learn to play Frisbee like American dogs, but perhaps they learn other games involving running from master’s stick and the like. Nevertheless, they don’t seem happy to me, and what’s the point of playing games if they don’t make you happy?

But I digress. Before we prepared our glorious feast we took a trip to the market for an introduction to different Chinese foods. There were countless booths filled with veggies and meats of every kind. There were pens holding bunnies and bowls housing snakes, turtles and frogs. It was a sadists dream. Hell, they even had slugs and other weird indistinguishable slimy creatures that probably provide the missing evolutionary link between tad poles and kangaroo mice. And yes, there were pens of dogs and butchers of dogs there.

But this alone is not deserving of a post. What inspired me to recap my trip was the discovery that, well, if you look closely at that hanging dog carcass and look more closely at its dangling appendages, you’ll see little dog shoes on its feet. Those of you who know me know that I’m a technophobe, and I’ll no doubt remain totally ignorant of the many wonders of Photoshop and photo editing until I die. That’s why you can trust that this picture has not been doctored in any way. Which begs the question why this dog so far from civilization would be wearing dog shoes?

In many parts of china dogs are pets, pampered, and well groomed. And as I mentioned, this particular breed of dog is particularly suitable to Chinese taste and is supposedly the only dog suitable for eating. Other dog breeds simply don’t taste as good. What then explains this phenomenon? Dog shoes on the Dingo looking food dog…a clash of cultures if you will, and a puzzle worth solving.

There seem to be only 2 possible scenarios whereby this food dog could wind up wearing dog shoes. The first possibility is that this dog has hip dysplasia and an allergy to grass, that if left unattended could result in crappy meat taste. The second and most titillating option is that I discovered a groundbreaking cuisine in China’s untainted countryside that fuses western pragmatism and sensitivity (dog’s have sensitive feet sometimes) with eastern holism. It’s a bold challenge in this age of unparalleled starvation and suffering to those who believe animals should be treated as humans. Food is food, regardless of the style and color of its shoes, sweater, hat, or cape. The third possibility is that this dog was in fact someone’s pet that strayed too far from the living room and the butcher, confused and overzealous with the prospect of free money, overlooked its little pink dog shoes until it was too late.

As I did not know this dog pre-butchering, I’ll never get to the true bottom of this question. And while this is an important question worth ruminating on, it shouldn’t deter us from living life and making some killer Chinese food, whatever it may be comprised of. I am not a fan of dog meat myself, so I opted for the vegetarian options of beer fish and pork. And as you can see from the pic, I had myself a great time regardless!