I guess it would be dishonest of me to omit this. It is a Chinese ingredient and some eat it, although very few. For home cooking, it is usually only available in 'farmer's markets' but there are restaurants serving dishes containing it, especially hotpots. In fact, many of those restaurants sell little else. I’ve never seen it in any supermarket.
You won't easily find the restaurants selling it any of the popular tourist places but they can be found, particularly in Jilin Province in NE China by the North Korean border and here in Guangxi where I live. I have seen them in Beijing, although those there were ordered to temporarily close during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. There are such restaurants within fewer than five minutes walk from my home. They never closed despite the Olympics’ historic link with Liuzhou*.
Today, I was perusing my grocery delivery app for some meat for dinner when, to my surprise, I saw a listing and photograph for 香肉 (xiāng ròu). 肉 (ròu) means meat, while 香 (xiāng) means ‘fragrant’ or ‘aromatic’. Together they are a dialectal euphemism for dog meat, more standardly 狗肉 (gǒu ròu). I’ve never seen it advertised in this way before.
Don’t worry! I didn’t buy it. Not out of any ethical concerns or sentiment, but simply because I don’t consider it to be good meat. Carnivorous mammals seldom, if ever are.
Anyway, it’s ¥38 / $5.33 USD for 500g / 1.1 lbs.
* 李宁 (lǐ níng), Li Ning, is a gymnast who was the People’s Republic of China’s first Olympic champion when he won three gold, two silver and one bronze in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. This was also the first Olympics in which the PRC participated.
After retiring from gymnastics he founded what is now one of China’s largest sports’ goods companies. He also lit the Olympic torch at the 2008 Games in Beijing.
He is a native Liuzhou citizen and returns often. The local sports’ stadium, the building of which he mainly sponsored, is named after him. I have met him several times. We didn't eat 'fragrant meat'.
This is the image from the online listing. Why it's coloured like this, I don't know.
