Where Rover is the menu's best friend

[Guest guest]

Where Rover is the menu's best friend

scotsman.com

LOUISA PEARSON

 

Cooking in the Danger Zone, BBC4

 

" I AM a TV cook " announced Stefan Gates, " and I like to think I'm pretty

adventurous when it comes to food " . Here I hold up my hands and admit I'd

never heard of Stefan Gates. Gordon Ramsay, yes, Ainsley Harriott, of

course. But Stefan Gates? No.

 

As it turned out, Gates seems to be more a foodie than a chef. He's written

a book about exotic foods and presented the BBC's Full on Food, but as far

as I can tell from his online CV, he hasn't spent any time in a professional

kitchen. Still, as far as his new series, Cooking in the Danger Zone is

concerned, Michelin stars wouldn't be much help. For this show is a curious

hybrid, where current affairs meets cookery in a travelogue format.

 

In the western world, canine meat is taboo, a step away from cannibalism.

Keen to discover whether dog meat had been given a fair trial, Gates set off

to Korea, boasting that the nation shared his own philosophy: " they'll eat

pretty much anything " . And that includes about one and a half million dogs a

year. Gates might be adventurous, but would he be able to stomach a serving

of Fido?

 

Cooking in the Danger Zone managed to find out more about the issue of dog

farming than any shaky footage filmed by animal rights activists. The open

access Gates received was because he'd come to Korea not to dismiss dog meat

out of hand, but to try to understand its place in the culture. We started

off at a dog farm where the animals were kept in conditions that Gates said

were of a better standard than many European pig farms. Nonetheless, he was

still unsettled at the sight of the caged fluffy pooches. He went to a local

restaurant to see dog stew being cooked up, but decided he wasn't quite

ready to take a bite.

 

As the documentary progressed, he interviewed people with different

viewpoints ñ from a woman who runs an animal rescue centre to a Buddhist

monk who said although he wouldn't eat dog meat, the practice couldn't be

condemned because it was traditional. Perhaps most surprising was his

discussion with some of Korea's growing band of pet owners who spend a

fortune on their dogs. Their view was that the subject is all about personal

choice, and that dogs can be seen as livestock, just like pigs or chickens

or cows.

 

By taking such an open approach, Cooking in the Danger Zone helped me

understand the psyche behind eating dog meat. I'm a vegetarian so you

wouldn't catch me touching the stuff, but for meat-eaters, I don't see the

problem. What makes a dog more important than a pig? In the end, Gates

bottled it. The reason he gave waiting cameras from Korean TV for turning

down the dog stew was that he didn't want to give approval to an unregulated

industry. I was surprised, especially as he could easily have sourced meat

that had come from a farm with high standards. Most likely he just didn't

want to return home to sacks full of hate mail.

 

http://living.scotsman.com/tv.cfm?id=1081872006