I had a high school friend that was born here in the US but his family were Vietnamese immigrants many many years ago. We'd often hang out at his family's house and they were very welcoming and had a "family" style cooking approach with large pots of cooked rice, vegetables and other things set out and you were welcome to always grab a bowl. They often imported native food stuffs so I was fond of the spices and peppers they often cooked with.

One day, I ended up over at his house before he actually had returned home from school. I was hungry and no one was actually at the house at that moment in time and I just helped myself to a bowl of rice and vegetables and there was this extremely stringy looking dried meat that was also set out. So I helped myself to some of that as well.

As I was eating, my friend showed up and I commented on the unique flavor of the meat because it didn't taste like chicken, pork, etc and asked him what it was. He deadpan looked me in the face and told me it was dog.

After that, I always made sure to verify what exactly it was I was consuming rather than helping myself. I don't know what the point of this post really is - but I'm glad that dog meat consumption is on the decline and I could have lived the rest of my life without knowing what dog meat tastes like.

It wasn't bad.