Bosintang

"Bosintang" (보신탕) is a Korean soup that includes dog meat as its primary ingredient. The traditions entail that the meat comes from dogs specifically bred for consumption, but numerous investigations by journalists, broadcasters, and animal protectionists find several examples where other breeds have been used as ingredients. The soup is claimed to provide increased virility,Citation

last =
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title =S Korea dog meat row deepens
newspaper =BBC News
pages =
year =2001
date =November 12, 2001
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1651543.stm] to those who eat it. The meat is boiled well together with many kinds of vegetables and seasoning for a long time. The taste is enhanced by the addition of garlic, ginger, Welsh onion, some kinds of herbs, perilla seed, and hot pepper.

Culture

"Bosintang" first came to Korea from China during the Three Kingdoms period.Fact|date=February 2007 At that time, ancient Korea had a hierarchical class system where the upper-classes consumed far more meat than the lower classes.Fact|date=August 2007 The lowest class people rarely ate meats of any kind.Fact|date=August 2007 Dog meat was one of the few animal protein sources available to all classes of Ancient Korean society, and it was consumed as a tonic food during the three hottest days of the year.Fact|date=August 2007 Oxen and hens were also common meat sources, but both types of meat were something that the poor could not afford to eat regularly because the animals were a necessary part of crop and egg production.

In modern South Korea, "bosintang" is not an everyday dish. Although consumption of many types of meat has risen, some of South Koreans still occasionally consume "bosintang" as a traditional tonic and consume it during the hottest days of the year.Fact|date=May 2008

The negative image and publicity that dog meat generates internationally has led many restaurants (especially outside of Korea) to use lamb or goat meat as a substitute, and publicize "bosintang" as a "traditional" goat-meat or lamb stew, avoiding any mention of the dish's original recipe.Fact|date=February 2008

See dog meat#Korea for more information on the culture and legal situation of dog meat consumption in South Korea.

Names

There are many different names for this dish in the Korean language, some of which may be considered euphemisms. The meat is called "dahn'gogi" (literally "sweet meat") in North Korea, as Kim Jong-il is said to have suggested. At the 1988 Summer Olympics at Seoul, the name "boshintang" was banned for the more euphemistic "yeongyangtang".

* Not to be confused with the homophone "게장 ("gejang"; marinated crabs)", "nor with the well-known" "육개장 ("yookgaejang"; beef soup)".

See also

* Korean cuisine

References

External links

* [http://wolf.ok.ac.kr/~annyg/english/e5.htm Cuisine of Dog Meat] Boshintang Information