This summer time, is not a good time to be a dog in North Korea.
With the boiling heat upon the country, North Korea’s largest brewery is dishing out twice as much beer as usual, Pyongyang residents are gearing up to get their “bingsu” — a syrupy treat concocted with shaved ice — and restaurants are supplying bowl after bowl of the season’s greatest culinary attraction: spicy dog meat soup!
Moderately known as “dangogi,” or sweet meat, dog has long been thought to be a stamina food in South and North Korea and is generally eaten during the hottest time of the year, giving a disheartening twist to the saying “dog days of summer.”
The dates are specified according to the lunar calendar and dog meat intake centers around the “sambok,” or 3 hottest days — July 17 and 27, and Aug. 16 this year.
Appetite appears to be particularly high this year due to a heatwave that has hit many parts of East Asia. Temperatures in the North region have been among the strongest ever recorded, circling near the 104 Fahrenheit mark in several cities.
“It’s been our national food since olden times,” expressed Kim Ae Kyong, a waitress at the Pyongyang House of Sweet Meat, the biggest dog specialty restaurant in the North Korean capital. “People believe that heat cures heat, so they eat dog meat and spicy dog soup on the hottest days. It’s healthier than other kinds of meat.”
The restaurant’s menu includes more than a dozen dog dishes, including hind legs, ribs and boiled dog skin.
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