“In Springfield, they eat dogs, they eat cats. The people who come, they eat the pets of the residents.” Relaying, during his debate on September 10 against his Democratic rival Kamala Harris, a fake news particularly grotesque about Haitian immigrants who allegedly eat domestic animals in this Ohio town, Donald Trump has caused a controversy as only he knows how to do. But the former American president has also highlighted a taboo, supposed to distinguish our civilization from other cultures considered barbaric: cynophagy, or the eating of dog meat. In the West today, the idea predominates that those who eat canines, which have become man’s closest friends, can only be cannibals.
Vietnam, China or tropical Africa do not have a monopoly on dog eating. There was a time, not so long ago, when putting a dog in a pot was not shameful in Europe. The irony is that the country where Donald Trump’s grandfather comes from, Germany, has long shown a real “love” for eating dogs, waiting until the 1980s to officially prohibit the practice. Until then, animals were slaughtered in state-controlled slaughterhouses. As reminds him the magazine The Mirrorwhich cites the historical work of Rüdiger von Chamier entitled Eat dogs, love dogs“it was only in 1986 that the law prohibited the killing of canines (dogs) and felines (cats) for meat.”
235,144 dogs were slaughtered in Germany between 1905 and 1940
In Europe, dog eating was particularly popular in times of crisis. In the 19th century, scientists and authorities highlighted the protein and low-cost benefits of dog meat. “The nature and taste of dog meat should not give rise to a feeling of disgust. It can be consumed without any proven inconvenience in times of shortage,” declared a veterinarian named Höhning in 1848, for example. Dog butchers developed in the second half of the 19th century. A kilo of dog meat then cost almost three times less than beef or pork. In France, too, these butchers experienced a boom during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. “A few left us/In front of a dog butcher’s/To buy their evening meal there,” the poet Guillaume Apollinaire testifies in Alcohols in 1913.
Added to the economic argument is a belief, widespread for centuries, that dog fat has curative properties, particularly in cases of respiratory diseases. According to official statistics, 235,144 dogs were slaughtered between 1905 and 1940 in Germany, a figure that does not take into account clandestine slaughtering. The consumption of dog meat increased particularly during the First World War and the economic crisis of the 1920s. A dog lover, Hitler did nothing to prevent this slaughter, merely introducing the obligation to stun animals for slaughter in 1933. Although the German post-war economic miracle put a big brake on canine consumption, it was not until 1985 that the last dog slaughterhouse, located in Augsburg, ceased its activity.
The “hot dog” of German immigrants
Today, eating dog has become the ultimate cultural taboo. Prince Henrik of Denmark, husband of Queen Margrethe II, who died in 2018 and was a big fan of dachshunds, caused a scandal by admitting to eating dog, comparing its taste to veal. Even the Korean Parliament voted unanimously earlier this year to ban the consumption of this meat from 2027, a historic turning point under the leadership of First Lady Kim Keon-hee, an ardent defender of animal welfare. Named “boshintang”, Dog stew was considered a delicacy in South Korea, but it is losing ground among younger generations. However, in the heart of Europe, in Switzerland, the consumption of dog meat is still permitted for personal use and private consumption. The practice is said to continue discreetly in rural cantons. In 2014, an animal protection association assured that “around 3% of Swiss people” still “secretly eat cats or dogs”. Dog meat is mainly used to make sausages and fat to treat rheumatism.
The other historical irony of Donald Trump’s exit is that at the very moment his grandfather Frederick Trump (born Friedrich Trumpf) emigrated from the Palatinate to New York in 1885, it was not Haitians but German immigrants who were associated with dog meat in the United States. By the late 19th century, the so-called Frankfurter became popular in the wake of the large wave of migration from the ports of Hamburg and Bremen. But the rumor that dog meat was used in its production quickly earned it the name “dog”. In English, the term “dog” as a synonym for “sausage” has been used since 1886.
According to tradition, it was a baker from Hanover, Charles Feltman, who was the first in Coney Island to start selling sausages in long buns, which were practical for not burning your hands. This cheap food spread, particularly through baseball games, another jewel of American culture. The “hot dog”, the ancestor of fast food, was born. In 1913, the New York Chamber of Commerce banned the use of this name in Coney Island to avoid bad publicity, but the “hot dog” became one of the glories of American “gastronomy”. To the point of appearing, in 1939, on the official menu of a picnic organized in New York by President Roosevelt for King George VI, to the great delight of the English sovereign.
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