Eating Dog and Cat

Author's note: I decided to make the title to this post as straightforward as possible so you know what you're getting into. Next month I travel to Lome where I will post lots of pictures with captions. I promise!

Eating Dog

The Evela wrestling festival takes place every summer in Kabye villages around Togo. The Kabye people are an ethnic group from the North, known to sometimes eat dog. So when I went to visit this year’s festival in my friend’s village, I was prepared to try it. In the morning, the young men douse themselves in talcum powder and wrestle in a giant circle. On the outside of the circle, and in trees scattered around the village, hang dead dogs. Strung up by their necks, the dogs dangle lifelessly with their tongues hanging out of their mouths. (Pictures to come soon) I watch the men go through the same routines they do with goats. Light a fire. Burn off the hair. Cut off the head. Place burnt head on stake. Make dog-kebobs.

I enter a straw hut with my friends Jocelyn and Nicole, two other PC volunteers who have already made the decision not to try it. But I have been talking for weeks about how I was going to try dog at this festival, so I couldn’t back out at this point. As I take my first bite, my friends note how I am noticeably shaking. I struggle to keep a steady hand as I pop the gristly morsel into my mouth. While I chewed my mind was bombarded with visions of all the dogs I have ever had. Kacy chasing the tennis ball. Abby fogging up the glass on our front door. As I take a second and third piece, and chew through the fat and the pieces of skin with fur still attached, I try to pinpoint the flavor. Not quite chicken but not quite beef. Then I realize, and maybe this is my mind playing tricks on me, the meat tastes exactly how a dog’s breath smells. I gag on the fourth piece. I take two shots of Sodabe and decide I’m done here.

Eating Cat

I had a cat, although it wasn’t technically just my cat. My neighbors had a cat when I moved in, and he often slept on my porch or on my lap as I read, purring as I scratched him behind the ears. Sometimes I fed him scraps of rice or spaghetti and he would hunt and kill mice in my latrine. We had a pleasant agreement. Not anymore though. The cat, who we affectionately called Pousse, is dead now. I ate him. I was tricked into eating my friend, thereby breaking the long standing rule most of us Americans live by:

ONCE THOUGH PETTETH AN ANIMAL, THOU SHALT NEVER EATETH IT.

The story: My neighbor, Pastor, had a brother visiting from the city. Being it a special occasion, the decided to kill a cat and eat a cat, not a usual practice in my village. I emerge from my house one morning and find them preparing it. I believe they have bought a cat from someone. I am a little weary and still sleepy, but eventually convince me to try some of this delicious cat. And it really is delicious. The woman has prepared it crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. It’s like fried chicken with a dash of hot pepper sauce on it. I eat a leg, the liver, and a little brain. I politely refuse the eyeball.

My other neighbor Matthias, chooses not to eat the cat, because it is his friend. I feel to grasp the meaning of this statement, thinking he means he doesn’t eat cat at all, which is odd since I often see him eat all other kinds of animals. Marie, his wife, seems particularly elated about eating cat this morning; I never knew she liked cat so much, but she’s from Northern Togo where eating this stuff is more common.

Later that day as I eat with Marie and Matthias, I notice Pousse is not around begging for scraps like he usually is. Marie has always hated Pousse, hitting him when he whines, But Matthias and I always shield him from her and let a little rice or fufu fall off our plates for Pousse to eat. We are the only two people in the compound that show any time of affection toward the cat. I assume the cat is off sleeping somewhere or dutifully killing mice in my shower area.

24 hours later I am eating dinner with my neighbors again. Pousse’s cries for food once again are unheard. In my mind, I think, god I wonder Pousse has run off……..my thought trails off and the reality hits me. Our cat is missing. Matthias refused to eat cat yesterday because it is his friend. Marie was thrilled that we were eating cat yesterday. My other neighbor, the Pastor conveniently found a cat to kill and eat. I was like the detective in the last ten minutes of The Usual Suspects, slowly piecing together all the parts of the story from the giant bulletin board in my brain. I had to know with certainty.

Uh Matthias. You know that cat I ate yesterday.
Yeah.
Was that the cat that lived here?
Huh?
The cat the lived here in this compound, that we fed and petted everyday?
Yeah.
I-I thought it was a different cat.
It doesn’t matter.
But that cat was my friend. I don’t want to eat my friend!
It was mature. And everyone else wanted to eat it so I couldn’t say no.
But even so, I betrayed that cat. He was my friend, and I ate his brain.
It’s not a big deal.
Je ne suis pas content!
Mattias and I eventually decide we must buy a new cat, and I suggest a dog as well. Only this time, no eating the compound pets!

Obviously, I would never eat dog or cat in the United States. But there is the phrase, “cultural relativity,” I always try to keep in mind when I try new things over here. Coming to Togo, I vowed to eat anything once, as long as I didn’t have to know the animal beforehand, a rule I clearly broke when I ate my cat. The Togolese can keep eating dogs and cats every year if they want. To many of them, meat is meat, protein is protein. And I understand and I respect that, but that doesn’t mean I’ll do it again.