Part 2 --Debunking, pseudohistory, Urban legends, and the idea that Chinese Restaurants in the USA secretly serve dogs and cats - "But don't Chinese eat unusual things?"
Yes, the Chinese in America did eat foods that the other Americans did not eat, but dogs and cats were not among them.
Greetings, oh people of the future.
I am writing this on Sunday night, almost 24 hours before you are reading it. As stated yesterday, this week I am experimenting with shorter, daily postings. Please let me know what you think.
It is a challenge, both logically and methodologically, to prove that something never, ever happened, and few are able to write such arguments in an interesting and convincing way. (Shout out to Benjamin Radford who writes a lot of this stuff, often for The Skeptical Inqurirer magazine although he focuses more on the present rather than the past, and I mentioned Robert Tuck and his work on ninas, a few months ago, I offered a positive book review of Augustus John Roe's book on the truth behind mythologized events in martial arts history, and I should probably also give credit to Michael Shermer of Skeptic magazine for his good work debunking holocaust deniers although I must also add that I have found Shermer to be dishonest and make promises he doesn’t keep, a serious flaw in a man who advertises that he is spreading truth. Jason Colavito also does good work on writing about flawed claims about ancient history and quack archeologty, despite his recent foray into writing a biography about James Dean. (I mean if he wants to write a biography on James Dean, hey more power to him, but just understand, I am not the target audience for James Dean biographies. ‘Nuff said.)
Having said that, what one must do to convincingly argue that something never happened is make sure there is no real evidence that it did, then point to a lack of real, solid evidence for the claim -which basically makes it a he said / she said thing at best — and then provide indications that the false claim is very unlikely and alternative explanations that are much more believable and likely to be true. The key part of this to determine why people believe the idea in the first place, then offer an alternative explanation for the evidence that has been presented or at least what proponents are offering for evidence. This is then often followed by the social context in which the claim is being made.
And thus, today’s offering. Again, please feel free to share. comment, send a like, or even purchase a paid subscription. Thanks.
As documented in earlier pieces in this forum, the Chinese first came to North America in significant numbers with the San Francisco gold rush of 1849. From that time forward they were mingling with their non-Chinese neighbors, sometimes peacefully, sometimes not, and opening restaurants from very early on. And I have never once read of a documented case of Chinese in North America serving a dog or cat in a restaurant or, for that matter, cooking any.
And even if I had, what would it really mean? Seriously, what if I were to find a report somewhere of a young, unshaved, White cowboy (“cowpoke” being the period slang for a cowboy) on a cattle drive who had caught, roasted, and eaten a dog and shared it with a bunch of his hot-head, young cowboy friends? Not that I have found any such report, mind you, even if it does sound like something that might have occurred back in the wild and wooly, uncivilized days of the wild, wild west, but if I did somehow stumble across such a report, no one but no one I know would interpret that to mean that White people regularly cook and eat dogs.
But having said that didn’t the Chinese of the time eat different food than their White neighbors? Surely one issue here is that their diet contained new and exotic, perhaps even strange or described-as-disgusting items that their White neighbors would never touch? Wouldn’t that make sense?
Well, yes, but dogs and cats were not among them as near as I can tell. In this context, I have found and am sharing an excerpt from an interesting interview with an old Chinese American in San Francisco recorded probably in the late 1960s or early 1970s, in which he was talking about impressing Americans with new foods, but dog, cat, and even rat are not mentioned. This excerpt is from an interview with a man named Leland Chin, then 73, published in the book, “Longtime Californ’, a Documentary Study of an American Chinatown.” The book was first published in 1972 and been updated periodically. This is from the 1986 (non-current) edition. Mr Chin told interviewers that he had worked most of his life as a bank clerk, and that his father first came to the USA in 1877. He also said, interestingly enough, that he had been drafted into the US Army in 1915 and sent to Europe and served there where he was one of two Asian-Americans in a unit of approximately 250 men. The other was Japanese-American. To add context, not in the book, while the US military for most of its history was usually careful to segregate Black and White troops into separate units, it often had no real police on the rare Americans who did not fit into either category, and there are historical examples of Asian-Americans being put into “all White” units. 1
“Now Richmond [Richmond, California] in those days was nothing but shrimp camps. There was a lot of shrimps in the bay, and at least 30 shrimp camps in Richmond. Sure, all Chinese! Everything was Chinese in those days. They started everything you know. Oh a lot of things in agriculture, in farming. When they started fishing shrimp, you know, they got all their nets from China. The Americans said, “Those Chinese are really able to do a lot of things we never thought of!” And then, Chinese were the first ones to get the abalone. In those days, the Americans didn’t even know what abalone was. They said, “Is that something to eat?” “It’s so dirty!” But the Chinese people got the abalone. And the crab. Then later on, they knew how to get all the seaweed and dry it and make nice soup! Oh, there’s so many things that the Chinese started! Asparagus, too! And they were laughing at the Chinese. “Why do you eat grass? That grass is for the horses!” But the Chinese knew that where that grass was coming up, there was a little sprout coming up, and they thought, “That must be good!” you know, the green part, so they plucked it up in the middle and got it out, and it actually turned out to be asparagus!” (page 77)
So, yes, the Chinese in America did eat food that their White neighbors did not eat.
And, no, they didn’t hide it either.
However, first, I don’t see any mention of dogs or cats anywhere in that paragraph, and, second, this gentleman spent a lot of time talking about dietary differences between the Chinese and Whites in late 19th and early 20th century California, and making it clear that if the Chinese were eating things the Americans were not, well, that was the Americans’ problem, it seems, and it was kind of sad, but, on the positive side, the Americans could be educated, at least, and taught to eat new foods, and he was not terribly shy about any of it. And, again, there are no dogs or cats here.
And I have found no documented evidence of North American Dog Eating Chinese or dog-serving restauranters anywhere else.
What we seem to be dealing with is a classic urban legend. An urban legend, occasionally referred to incorrectly as “an urban myth,” is an untrue story that is believed and spread by someone who thinks he is describing a true event but admits he or she was not actually present when the event described allegedly happened. Some call them “friend of a friend stories” because that’s often how they are attributed. And although Jan Harold Brunvand did not invent the term, he did a great deal to popularize it by writing books for the public discussing these urban legends, what they mean, and how we know whether or not they are true. In his book, “The Choking Doberman,” reportedly on page 121-122 in Chapter four (or so says the internet. My copy is far away and unobtainable at the moment. I really wish I had it with me.), the author delves into the reports and declares them to be urban legends with himself unable to find a single verified report of a single Chinese restaurant serving dog or cat.
As for the origins or age of the idea that Chinese restaurants are serving cats, so far, I have not been able to trace them. I have however had two interesting related reports showing late 19th Century intellectuals had some thoughts on the issue. I will share them tomorrow.
In the meantime . . .
What’s abalone anyway? “Is that something to eat?” “It’s so dirty!”
Abalone is a large shellfish sort of like a big clam. Abalone is considered a delicacy, a luxurious food in modern Chinese culture, and expensive, and only eaten rarely for that reason. (I am not sure, honestly, if I have eaten it or not.) They can be purchased fresh, frozen, canned, or dried, and each of these requires a special sort of preparation before being ready for cooking before being served. Fortunately, we live in the year 2024 (at least, I do. Honestly, you might be reading this some other, later year if I am lucky) and we can access good instructions on how to prepare each of these types of abalone on YouTube or through a different source. Please be aware there are some ecological concerns about the sourcing of commercial abalone and you might wish to research these prior to purchasing abalone. In fact, one reason I have not rushed out and tried to cook it is due to the ecological concerns. Remember, it’s important to be good to your Mother Earth. ya ah tah hey.
I am going to share two videos. The first will be on how to prepare fresh abalone for cooking. The second will be on how to prepare a Chinese dish using abalone.
This one is pretty good. If the accent is difficult to place, he is from Singapore (I thought he sounded Malay-Chinese but the accents are very close.)
Thanks! Please come back tomorrow!
Source, a lecture on Asian and Chinese-Americans in the US Civil War given by author and lecturer Ruthanne Lum McCunn at the Chinese Historical Society of New England (CHSNE) sometime in 2013 or 2014, iirc. See https://www.mccunn.com/ While there were very few Asian Americans of any kind serving in the US Civil War (iirc, she said she had found less than a dozen at the time), the stories of who they were and how they got there were fascinating.
I have seen Chinese medicinal recipes for white dog as a cooling food, but medicine is not really cuisine. Of course, an old friend's czech great grandmother's cookbook has cooking times for rat and mouse as famine foods. Nobody believes Central Europeans put rat in knédliy