Dog Town

So, Friday was the first [and hopefully only time] that I tried dog. Thai people DO NOT EAT DOG [a point my host families and friends made clear after I told them of my adventure] but up on the border of Laos where I live we have lots of different Thai people; Vietnamese Thai, Chinese Thai, Japanese Thai. It just so happens that in Vietnam they DO eat dog, so while Tony, P Kaew and I were on the road to Sakhon Nakhon we passed by a small little village with a woman on the side of the road selling barbecued and stewed dog. I decided I should try.

We pulled over to the little shop [for those of you who have yet to understand that a "shop" is pretty much a tiki hut roof on stilts with some tables underneath.. that's what this was] on the side of the road to a small old woman grinning when she saw a falang step out of the car. P Kaew told her that I would like to try - she laughed. Tony said I should try the barbecued kind instead of the stewed kind becuase the stewed kind might make me sick. I tried the stewed kind just to prove I had balls. It tasted like rubbery and not appealing chicken. Then I tried the barbecued piece; just like beef jerky. I actually liked it, so the woman cut another piece and gave me some sticky rice to eat it with. We sat around talking for a bit while I munched on my dog jerky and rice. She even gave me a doggy bag [of dog, oh the irony] to take with me in the car. This was the first thing I had had to eat that morning since we were on the road. When we got back to my house at 4 pm I threw up and was in bed for most of the rest of the weekend. As Alicia would say "Karma".

I do feel a little guilty for trying it, but dogs are not generally pets here, so it didn't phase me as much as it would have in Canada. My twin sister Ashley said "HOW COULD YOU?!" and when I think about it, it does make me feel a little sad. But it's no different than a cow and a pig when you see cows running all over the place and you go to a farm on slaughter day [yes I've had some interesting adventures]. So, I guess it's safe to say that when I return to Canada ... I will be willing to eat everything.. maybe even mustard.

The list of things I've eaten here:
Pork
Beef
Chicken
Fish [don't worry the list gets worse than this]
Squid
Cuttlefish
Octopus
Crab
Liver
Kidney
Tongue
Cow stomach
Fish stomach
Fish skin
Pig skin
Pig ear
Grubs
Grasshopper
Dog
Chicken blood
Cow blood
Fish fins/tail/part of head
Frog [ADDED]

I'm sure there is more - I will add to this as the list increases.

And I would like to mention that these things are not on a THAI menu - a lot of this food is Isaan food [the Northeastern part of Thailand where I live] which consists of a lot of Laos food.

"You've got so much love in you" - The Rocket Summer