North Korea is promoting the virtue of dog meat as a way to beat the summer heat and says customers are packing Pyongyang restaurants which serve the traditional dish.The North has been hosting dog meat food contests to help develop the traditional cuisine, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Saturday.
Dog meat is called dangogi, or "sweet meat", a euphemism coined by North Korea's founder Kim Il-Sung in the early 1980s. Dangogi-jang is dog meat soup.
"Our ancestors believed hot dangogi soup consumed during the dog days of summer helped prevent diseases from malnutrition and bolster stamina," KCNA said.
It cited a 17th century book on herbal medicine to tout the nutritional value of dog meat. According to the book, dog meat is especially good for the digestive organs, blood circulation and bone marrow and improves stamina.
"During the current dog days of summer, many customers are visiting dangogi restaurants in Pyongyang," KCNA said.
No, we shouldn't impose our own cultural values on others. Strangely, cannibalism was perfectly acceptable in many other cultures before Christian missionaries discouraged the practice. Apparently, the nutritional value of human flesh was very high.
In societies where canines play a valuable role in assisting sight-impaired people, police, border control, drug enforcement etc, and as companions, the notion of eating them is hard to bear.
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