Why I Dined on Dog

There is no rational reason that eating dog is barbaric while eating pig is, well, pork, insists Roger Cohen. Nor are dogs natural pets over pigs. So it stands to reason that China should cancel plans to fine people for dining on dogs, Cohen writes. "If you eat meat you cannot logically find it morally or ethically repugnant to eat a particular meat," Cohen notes in the New York Times. "Do pigs have any more or less of a soul than dogs?" He thinks not.

But that doesn't make his memory of eating dog meat a few weeks ago any easier to digest for Cohen, who describes himself as an "I'll try anything once guy." At a restaurant in China serving "dog tail, dog brain, dog intestine, even dog penis," he tasted the animal's "tender," "unctuous" meat, thinking, all the while, of his beagle, Ned. When it comes to food—and animal friends—reason simply doesn't rule, he concedes. We're guided by our hearts.

(More dog stories.)