The year was 1988. The South Korean government banned the slaughtering of dogs and the serving of dog meat in restaurants. The Olympics were coming to town and the South Korean government did not want to project to the world the image of an uncivilized dogeating nation. A few years ago in England demonstrators prostrated themselves in front of trucks carrying British horses to France for slaughter. Then there are the cows in India: even Macdonald's had to change its menu when they went to India —lamb patties instead of the traditional beef. In insults too food looms large: the British call the French “froggies”, the Indians call despised groups “dog-cookers” (Leach 1964; Wijewardene 1968).

Humans do take their food seriously, not just in a nutritional or medical sense but also in a cultural sense. Poor Koreans, a people with a long and distinguished culture, are forced to prove that they are “civilized” to the rest of the world by changing their food habits. Anthropologists have long noted that among the wide variety of edible vegetables and especially animals available to a given social group, only a small fraction is actually consumed. Prohibited foods, whether by injunction or by custom, far outnumber permitted ones in most societies.