Fresh Eats: What Do Dogs and Cats Taste Like?

Last week, San Francisco residents delivered a petition to the South Korean consulate, asking that country's residents to stop eating dogs and cats. I thought I'd draw on personal experience to tell you what you're asking them to give up.

Andrew J. Nilsen

Which is tastier: Rover or Mrs. Snugglepuss?

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• What Dogs and Cats Taste Like
  August 16, 2011

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• Banaue

I had roast cat one morning in Hong Kong, when I was wandering around the back streets. I saw a skinless kitty hanging in the window from a hook beside the roast chickens and ducks. I sat at a stool and, not speaking Cantonese, pointed at the cat. A burly guy behind the counter pulled it off the hook, wielded a big butcher knife, and whack! — chopped it in half. Then, whack! whack! whack! whack! — he chopped it roughly into pieces, tossed them atop a bowl of rice, and squirted a little sweet soy sauce overtop. The meat was tough and stringy. This makes sense, as cats are mostly muscle. The flavor reminded me of 3-day-old white-meat turkey.

While I sampled cat on purpose, dog was an accident. I was in Banaue in the Philippines, a transfer point for jeepneys. I had just gotten off one and had about an hour to kill. The waiting station was a small restaurant where everybody was eating some sort of dark brown stew. It smelled good, so I got a bowl. I was about halfway through it when a man came over and said, "Do you know what it is that you are eating?"

When I told him no, he said, "Bow. Bow wow. Bow wow wow."

Dog, I must say, is a lot tastier than cat, although the means of cooking could have something to do with it. It's a gamy, dark meat, but it was also wonderfully tender, like rabbit, and it makes a great earthy, meaty, satisfying stew. I'm probably not going to have it again.

But I won't say I didn't enjoy it.