Meat Taboos & Thit Cho

I remember watching David Letterman one night years ago, probably when I was still in college. Julia Child was on the show and she was doing a cooking demonstration. She was hacking away at a duck.

She squawked, "You know, this method also works very well with baby seal."

Letterman nearly choked. "Baby seal? Jeez, Julia, what are you, some kind of monster?"

"What's the difference between a duck and seal?" she asked, still hacking away at the duck.

Fair point. What is the difference between a duck and seal? Or a dog and pig? Or a horse and a cow? Why do people think squirrels are cute but they run screaming from rats? Why is it okay to eat rabbit but not cat? Where do we get this stuff from?

And yet, most people don't seem to think about this much at all. Maybe I spend too much time thinking about it. Maybe I'm the one with the problem, not everyone else.

A few years ago, in our pre-carnivore days, my husband & I went to Vietnam. Now I had heard that they eat dogs in Vietnam. I prepared myself for this. I memorized the word for it (thit cho) so I could make sure we didn't accidentally wander into a dog restaurant. After human, probably no meat strikes more fear in the hearts of Americans that the thought of eating dog meat.

Anyway, although I wasn't surprised to find dog meat served in Vietnam, I was surprised to see that many Vietnamese people also keep dogs as pets. And I'm not talking about some scruffy guard dog chained to someone's fence. I mean floofy little dogs with shiny pink collars and little sweaters. That kind of pet.

So I was curious as to how people rectify that. How do you spend the day snuggling with your pet dog, and be okay with the fact that there's a thit cho joint just down the road? I was lucky to meet up with a Vietnamese colleague and after a couple of beers, we asked her.

"Easy," she explained. "See that dog? That's an eating dog."

And that was it. The wild-looking dogs with the pointy ears are for eating, and the others are for dressing up in little sweaters and cuddling with. Simple.

I guess meat taboos don't have to make sense. Everyone has their own. So if I'm okay with eating pig but not rabbit, alligator but not turtle, well, I guess I shouldn't lose sleep trying to justify it.


Note: I should mention here, before you go hiding Fido from your Vietnamese neighbors, that while dog is eaten in Vietnam, not all Vietnamese people eat dog. And it's not an everyday dish. It's expensive, and it is for special occasions. No one is ever going to serve you dog in place of another meat, give it to you by accident or roast your dog for the neighborhood block party.