Dog Meat Eating History and Culture in Korea

한국의 개고기 식용의 역사와 문화

Dog meat was begun to be edible by the Chinese, Japanese, the French, Belginan, German Philippines Vietnamese, North-Americans African-Indians Canadian-aborigines Alaskan aborigines including Kor-eans. According to the record, Korea has a long history to have eaten dog meat from the era of Sam-kug(three kingdoms BC 57∼AC 668) and so there are numerous languages proverbs, and customs re-lated to the dog meat. Over the long history there have been many records and recipes about the edib-leness of dog meat. But at present time only the way of cooking such as Bosintang(a soup) Suyuk(a boiled meat) Duruchighi(boiled meat added spice and slightly roasted) Muchim(boiled meat added by spice and mixed) Gaesoju(an extract) Jeongol(boiled meat mixed with spices vegetables and water on the pot) remains. Koreans eat dog meat following the traditional customs n the Boknal(hottest day in summer). Also the areas of Buyo. Sochon, Boryong adn Chongyang of Chungnam province and the ad-jacent areas like Kongju, Iksan, and Nonsan have customs to kill the dog and offer dog meat to the gue-sts in time of small or big occasions such as funeral ceremony Hoigap(anniversary of one's 60th birth-day) and one's birthday. This range of customs is expanding larger and larger. These areas are the cen-ter of past Baekche(BC 57∼AC 660). In spite of this it is unreasonable, and excessive action for foreig-ner to fine fault with the dog meat or Korean food culture.