Hair of the dog

A friend of mine, Mark McDonald, a regular at my last restaurant in Hanoi, knew a young tour guide whose father cooked dog for a living. A regular dog caterer, in fact… grilled, braised, kebabs, schnitzel, soup, satay, stew – you name it, he cooked it.

The kid was regaling my friend with his father’s tales of hardships during “The American War”: living in the jungle, suffering from malaria, lack of shelter, shooting tigers and other wild animals for food, that kind of thing. The war, of course, was a living nightmare for everybody who went through it, whether they were in the jungle or the city.

Eventually he got on to the subject of how his father, a common Viet Cong foot soldier, had come across a dead American pilot who was caught hanging in a tree by his parachute. Since the old man was doing the cooking for his troop, and since they were suffering from serious fatigue and a lack of protein, he decided to cut a piece of flesh from the pilot’s thigh. He simply dropped it into the soup he was making that night. When the troops ate the soup, many of them didn’t like the flavour. “Too strong”, they said. “Too gamey.”

Now, twenty-five years later, the father is one of the great dog chefs of Vietnam. The kid invited us over for dinner with the promise that his father would prepare dog the customary and legendary seventeen different ways – a full-on buffet, doggie-style.

My pal, a reporter, asked his photographer and me to come along. He suggested I ask culinary questions during the dinner so it would appear that the story was about canine cuisine, although his real interest was in the gory tales of the war. What better way to talk about eating a side of man than over a little dinner of dog?

The dinner took place in the old man’s house in a working-class district on the outskirts of Hanoi. The house was hidden behind a bunch of storefronts that were selling cheap pottery, electrical gadgets and various plumbing supplies that were laced in a thin layer of dust. I arrived late, and had to walk through a maze of scattered pots, PVC pipes, an array of coils and wires, and Soviet electrical gizmos that would best be described as really bad junk.

You know how people always say there are ninety-nine ways to skin a cat, but nobody can tell you “the way” to skin it? If anyone could, it would be this guy

Everyone was waiting patiently, quietly sipping cups of bitter green tea. As I entered, I apologised for being late, but could not figure out why my friends were looking so tense. The faint sound of traffic was punctuated with the sound of two dogs – one howling, one barking  – in the backyard.

“With all seriousness, I have to ask, is that dinner?”

“With all seriousness, I have no idea,” Mark responded, blushing either with nerves or embarrassment, I could not really tell. Dining on man’s best friend is a strange emotional dilemma and the three of us were petrified.

While the food was being prepared out of sight, in a kitchen out back, I started to run through all the culinary questions that I could muster in my head. We sat there speechless as the sound of a moaning dog filled the air like a cruel winter wind.

After about twenty minutes our host finally arrived and greeted us. He apologised for not having enough time to prepare all seventeen versions of dog. I think it’s fair to say he was a real expert. You know how people always say there are ninety-nine ways to skin a cat, but nobody can tell you “the way” to skin it? If anyone could, it would be this guy.

The table was graced with sliced boiled dog, stir-fried dog with lemon grass, and a dog soup, which contained what appeared to be the shank of the dog.

Like many Vietnamese dishes, dog is accompanied with a dipping sauce to complement the flavours and tie the dish together. Eating dog without the dipping sauce is rather like eating sushi without soy sauce and wasabi. Unfortunately this light purple sauce with the consistency of watery ketchup smells bad and tastes worse. It is the closest thing to fermented shrimp shit you can get and seems to continue fermenting in front of your eyes as fine white bubbles coat the inside of the dipping bowl. It has taken me eight years to acquire a taste for it, and I still do not really like it.

As we sized up the dishes, we darted looks at each other, knowing that the moment of truth had arrived. Wondering which one of us would start, visions of my first dog started to run through my head. Then all my friends’ dogs. They say that when you die, you watch images of your life hurtle by. When you eat dog, the experience is rather similar. You think about every dog you’ve ever been close to. The thought struck me: What the hell am I doing? Have I lost my mind?

Our host, wanting to honour his foreign guests at Tet, the lunar New Year, graciously pointed out the three boiled pigs’ eyes. They were sitting in a bowl, like three Cyclops – a real treat here, especially during Tet. Tet does that to people – they are generally much more generous and thoughtful during this very special time. But having these three eyes – with detached retinas – staring at us was more than a little eerie and I quickly retreated to my Islamic upbringing.

“Tastes a little like roast beef,” I said, “but if you put roast beef next to it, I am sure I would be able to tell the difference”

It was me who started eating first, under the pretence that I was the most adventurous one, when in fact I was just quickest to detect the smallest portion of boiled dog available. It sat there in front of me on an oval plastic platter – thinly sliced and fanned nicely over the plate, free of garnishes and vegetables. It was nothing, I reasoned, but beef. I proceeded to remove the fat from the meat, peeling it away and placing it on the side of the plate. It reminded me of the fat from a breast of duck, except it was slightly charred. I turned to our hosts, gave the most superficial smile I could muster, then dropped the meat in my mouth and started to chew quickly. As the flavours released, the tastes took me right back to English boarding school. The dog tasted exactly like the roast beef they used to serve every Sunday with Yorkshire pudding: dry, overcooked, and chewy – except the dog had no large exposed blood vessels. I quickly washed it down with beer, but the taste lingered heavily on my palate. I needed to reassure the other guys that the dog was actually edible and we are all just facing an emotional barrier. “Tastes a little like roast beef,” I said, “but if you put roast beef next to it, I am sure I would be able to tell the difference.”

Next was fried dog. Just as I put it into my mouth my friend frowned and complained that it was very strong, which it was. It was hard to spit it out, so I manipulated it to the back of my tongue, reached for the beer and tried to wash it down. Gamey would be an understatement: “doggie” would be a better description.

Then we went for the soup. Our hosts were both feverishly chowing down. As I watched them shovel up pieces of dog, like famished construction workers with a limited lunch break, I could only think to myself that we (the Americans) never had a chance here. The meal for us was pretty much over within three minutes. We were like three anorexics just doing face time at a dinner table.

Conversation during a Vietnamese meal is usually very limited. The table usually falls into silence, with the exception of slurps and the ploughing of rice bowls and chopsticks. This was the opportune moment to ask all my questions and thereby avoid the food. I would learn that the best dogs for eating are six months to one year old, and the young females are best of all. The Chinese and Koreans, true connoisseurs, buy a lot of dogs from Vietnam.

When I asked our host if there was any part of the dog that couldn’t be eaten, he didn’t miss a beat. “The hair,” he said, without the slightest trace of humour or irony. Surely the paws couldn’t be eaten? No, they’re savoured in soups and stocks. There is no prized cut from a dog, apparently, although cooking technique and execution are critical.

The normal diet for a dog is rice and leftovers, which sounds perfect for a Vietnamese pet, but the dogs raised for eating are special. They are a strange half-breed – older and fatter than the normal Vietnamese house-dog, but strangely favoured by expatriates. I know some who have gone out of their way to save a dog, which they will then feed and fatten up only for the poor thing to be dog-napped by someone.

Curiously, those who eat dog only eat a certain type – an intellectual justification for those who regard the little darlings as part of the family. The chef said other dogs do not taste like the mutts he cooks. He made a point of telling me that “the German dog” is not good for eating. What? When was this guy in Germany? It sounded like he must have eaten a German shepherd. I imagine that during the hardships of war, they were forced to take on the K-9 corps of the US army. Hell, if he could eat a piece of leg from a dead pilot hanging from a tree, then dogs that were wounded or dead on the battlefield must have seemed like fair game.

On the Yin-Yang chart of hot and cold foods, dog makes you hot. It is a winter dish, eaten in northern areas, where the winters get very cold. When you eat dog in summer, it’s said that you release a strange smell when you sweat. Dogs, apparently, can pick up on the scent, and I suspect they think you’re some kind of werewolf.

Dog meat is more expensive than chicken, but cheaper than beef, and the price fluctuates according to the whole lunar calendar of karma and superstition. It is eaten for good luck during the last two weeks of a calendar month. Our dinner took place around Tet, when dog is in very high demand, and costs about $1.25 a pound.

There were just five of us at dinner that night, so the neighbours were given the dog’s head. Others were awarded the intestines, liver and stomach. Thank God for neighbours. The chef asked us if we had a problem eating dog, which was very difficult to answer given that the guy had not only eaten a piece of American pilot, but had also cooked him.

As our hosts continued to work their way through the dog dishes, the rest of us were content to eat the bread and drink the warm beer. A small cat began to rub up against us, mewing and whining and twitching. When our hosts finished their meal and cleared the table, they fed the leftovers to the cat, which sent the scrawny feline into a kind of sexual rapture.

Yes, indeed, it’s a dog-eat-dog world. Actually, it is worse then that. Man eats monkey brains, cat eats dog, cows eat sheep, and vegetarians are starting to make much more sense to me by the minute. C

Taken from Bobby Chinn’s Vietnamese Food by Bobby Chinn, published by Conran Octopus; octopusbooks.co.uk

The House of Ho*, 57-59 Old Compton Street, London W1D 6HP
020-7287 0770; houseofho.co.uk

 

*100% dog-free. We recommend the chicken curry and the Ho’groni (Campari, Tanqueray 10 gin, pomelo bitters)