North Korea has been grappling with record heat this week, prompting officials to recommend dog-meat soup as a way to cool off.
State media promoted the concotion as a traditional summer health remedy as Pyongyang reached a sweltering 98 degrees Thursday, the highest recorded temperature since the capital city began tracking the weather.
Ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun published a health feature on Aug. 2 where a Pyongyang General Hospital doctor recommended a myriad of “nutritious foods” to help North Koreans stay cool — including watermelon, cucumbers, fish porridge and mung beans.
But the most eye-catching recommendation, at least to Western world readers, was dog-meat soup.
The newspaper, which devoted an entire separate feature to the local dish, described dog-meat soup as a traditional summer health tonic that can help people cope with the sizzling heat.
“Even if dog-meat soup spills on the top of your food during the dog days of summer, it becomes medicine,” the newspaper wrote, reviving an old Korean proverb.
Euphemistically known as “dangogi,” or sweet meat, North and South Koreans have long believed dog meat to be a stamina food, typically eaten during the hottest days of the year.
“It’s been our national food since olden times,” Pyongyang House of Sweet Meat waitress Kim Ae Kyong said in 2018.
“People believe that heat cures heat, so they eat dog meat and spicy dog soup on the hottest days. It’s healthier than other kinds of meat.”
The hottest weeks of the year in North Korea are known locally as sambok, or the dog days of summer.
Typically during the summer months of July and August, North Korea reaches top temperatures of between 84 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
With Post wires
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