Quirky Asia Files: Dogs and Cats Off the Menu in China

Fido and Fluffy are now off the menu in China. And you can get a hefty fine if you don't comply.

Well, OK, we can argue about diet and animal rights and whatever, but I'm really not liking government (a) telling individuals what they can and cannot eat, and (b) punishing those people.

Yeah, this is authoritarian China, where the government runs roughshod over people all the time, but is the idea of banning certain kinds of foods THAT different from some of the stuff happening right here in the name of nanny government? *cough* Michael Bloomberg! *cough*

OK, for the record. I've never eaten cat or dog. Nobody in the MM clan really eats that stuff either. In all honesty, the feeling is something like, "Well, people in southern China eat that kind of thing. Those people will eat anything." (When the news story broke a few years ago about people in Guangdong eating civet cats and getting sick with SARS, we all just looked at each other knowingly.)

Anyway, are there regional biases and stereotypes running wild all over the Far East? YOU BETCHA. Offended yet?

Besides, it's the Koreans who are really, REALLY famous for eating dog (that's supposed to be illegal now, though you must be joking if you think a mere law can stamp out centuries of culinary habit). Hey, what's going to happen to the dinner plans of all those Korean minorities living in China now?

MM, for the record, prefers duck. Lots and lots of crispy, juicy roasted duck, glistening lusciously as it hangs in a Chinatown restaurant window. (Oh, man! Now I'm starving!)