So I am back in the states, and have been for about three weeks now, yet I continue to write on my blog when it was specifically developed for my trip. Why is this you ask? Because I still have many exciting and heart-wrenching stories to relay to you faithful readers who of course have been waiting for additional tidbits of heaven. But mostly, because I damn well feel like it.

So goes the story of my Asian Culinary Education . . .

Often you will hear jokes that include both Asian food and animals that are not necessarily common to the American palate, such as dog, but again, these are jokes. However, when actually in Asia, I came to learn that they are well-founded jokes indeed.

Many Thai people admitted that the "chicken" isn't always chicken, and some even admitted that dog tastes good. To take this further, the three South Koreans I was teaching with described to my bewildered Western ears that in their society dog is as common a meant as chicken, and is openly offered and eaten. Yet they also keep dogs as pets. When I expressed my confusion about how they differentiate between edible and non-edible canine, they simply explained that people in America keep some fish as pets, which they would never eat, but others they do eat. Same with some cows and sheep and chickens. I had never thought about it like that. They explained that in South Korea they separate their pets from the edible mutts, and actually have "dog farms" for the supposed dogs that are bred to be dinner. This I will believe when I see it.

On one island in Thailand, the menus always gave the options of chicken, fish, pork, squid, shrimp, and then occasionally there was the ominous "beef." My travel companions and I always joked that this was a small island, probably not capable of importing many Grade A steaks, and that additionally, we had never seen a cow on the entire island. This left us to speculate what "beef" really was. Once, one of us ordered a "hamburger" and we all waited eagerly to see what would come. The bun was fine, there was lettuce and tomato, but in the middle sat a shriveled, discolored, meager piece of . . . something. I can't promise it was dog, but it sure as hell wasn't any "beef" that I've ever seen. Evidently it tasted fine.

However, with mangy mutts roaming everywhere in Thailand, I wondered how fine the line was between pet and dinner in this part of Asia. This fine line was brought to my attention one day as I was walking to my guesthouse in Ayuthaya. The guesthouse next to mine had a couple new puppies, who were adorable, as they were not yet mangy and dirty like most other Thai dogs. I would often pause on my walk past to pet the puppies as they played out front with the guesthouse owner. One day on my walk by, the owner, a young lady about the same age as myself, was again outside playing with the puppies. However this time she held one of the puppies horizontally in her hands and was rolling it around, like she was rolling dough. She joked with one of her relatives who sat nearby, "Mmmmm . . . We BBQ him up, make nice dinner." "No!" I yelled back in awe, "You're not going to eat him!" I was kidding around, but not really.
She smiled, "Noooo . . . " She crooned at the little puppy, tickling his belly, "Too young, maybe next week!" And she laughed at her own joke, as I stood there, mouth open in a state of repulsion. But that's just it- she was joking, but, you know on some level, she was serious. It was only funny to her because it was true.

And so goes life when you eat dogs. For the remainder of time in Asia, I was always weary of my food and of the mangy dogs that inevitably fill all the streets. I am well aware that it is almost certain that at some point during my stay I consumed some canine meat, and I am not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing that I never noticed.