Review of Jonathan Safran Foer "Let Them Eat Dog"

So say you are driving down the road and you see a stray dog wandering on the shoulder. When I see this, the first thing that pops into my mind is “Please do not run out in front of me.” Recently I read an essay by Jonathan Safran Foer titled “Let Them Eat Dog.” In this essay, he explains the logical reasons why we could eat dog. Crazy, right? I know I would never think that the stray dog I saw on the side of the road could possibly be my next meal. Foer is able to use humor, imagery, credibility, and emotions to persuade us to ask ourselves this question- why do we choose to eat the animals we do?

When I read this essay, I noticed that Foer talked about how we all know what takes place at slaughterhouses and factory farms. I think Foer was trying to play to our emotions when he stated that animal cruelty takes place at these farms. In my opinion, Foer making general statements does not successfully get his point across. I believe that if Foer had expanded on this topic by giving full, graphic details about what takes place at slaughterhouses he could have grabbed his readers’ attention. Let's say that you do decide to read this essay. However, the essay you read contains these graphic details. Do you think this description might persuade you to quit eating meat from animals that are handled in these slaughterhouses and farms factories? With this being said, I believe Foer could have changed some of his readers’ minds by simply describing the treatment of animals we do eat in more detail.

Before reading this essay, I never really thought about what actually takes place at these slaughterhouses. I decided to look up images from slaughterhouses to really get a feel for what takes place.

How crazy is all of this? I was going through these pictures and found myself about to gag. Slaughterhouses are cruel. If you ever get brave enough to look up images of what actually happens, be prepared my friends!

Now let’s move on and focus on how Foer draws his readers in by using humor. We all like a little bit of comic relief when we are talking about serious subjects-well I do at least. Foer uses this to his advantage in his essay. By using humor, I believe Foer draws us in more and makes us feel comfortable to read what he has to say. When I read how he describes the dog meat taste as “buttery” and “floral,” I chuckled a little bit. He had my attention from that point. Foer got me again when he wrote a sentence using the word “pedigree.” Now if I am not mistaken, isn’t pedigree a type of dog food? Come on now Foer, you are killing me! In all honesty, I think that Foer using this specific word was extremely clever and added some comic relief that helped make an uncomfortable subject a bit more bearable.

Credibility is the next rhetorical tool Foer uses in his essay. After reading the essay, I mapped out three different ways Foer establishes credibility.

1^st: Lets go back to when he describes how dog meat actually tastes. In this point of his essay, he went on to point out various cultures and individuals who have eaten dog meat and praised its taste and healing effects. None of us would actually know this information unless we had researched this topic. Because of this, Foer is able to show that he must know what he is talking about, which makes us trust him more. It also makes us wonder that if dog meat is good for other cultures, why not us?

2^nd: In his essay, Mr. Foer pointed out that our environment could benefit if we ate dog. He talks about hot topic issues like global-warming and energy inputs showing me that he must have put a lot of thought into this. I feel that he must know a little bit about what he is talking about- so why not consider his argument?

3^rd: On a sad note, Foer talked about how millions of dogs and cats are euthanized each year. More shockingly, did you know that these euthanized dogs and cats are provided to food processing plants in order to be made food for other animals? No? Me neither. However, Foer knew. Once again, he shows us just how credible he is by presenting to his readers shocking facts that cause us to ponder.

            Although Foer uses humor, credibility, and emotion to his advantage, I believe his most powerful rhetorical tool was imagery. Let’s look at the recipe Foer presented in his essay for a moment.

Stewed Dog, Wedding Style

-First kill a medium size dog

-Burn off the fur over a hot fire                   

-Remove the skin while still warm, carefully; set the skin aside to be used later

-Cut the meat into 1’ cubes

-Blend in puree of dog’s liver

When I first read this recipe, I imagined the whole scenario in my head. I imagined killing the dog, starting the fire, placing the dog on a board or something to burn off the fur, using a large knife to remove the skin, putting the liver into the blender, and then I just had to stop there.  I was about to make myself sick. After I stopped for a minute, I realized that this is just a normal recipe that we would use when making an entree with meat from chicken (well maybe not pureeing liver). You cannot tell me that if you read this recipe and it called for chicken instead of dog that you would feel sick about it (unless you are already a vegetarian, vegan, etc). I know I would not. I love my chicken way too much. I probably would have used this recipe to make dinner. Foer was able to make me imagine this scenario in my head to get his point across that why do we, as individuals, see absolutely nothing wrong with eating chicken, yet the first mention of eating dog, we begin to gag.

Now let’s go back to our original scenario. Let’s say you have almost made it home and you see your neighbor’s stray chicken in your yard. My first instinct would be "yum, that would be some good fried chicken; lets keep it, kill it, and cook it." Why do my instincts tell me it is okay to eat the chicken even though we still are going to have to “wring its’ neck?" I just assume that our culture accepts the consumption of chicken as a main food, and we crave the taste of chicken. Even though Foer has made me begin to ask myself these questions, I can honestly say that I probably will not stop eating chicken nor will I eat dog. Foer does an excellent job using rhetorical tools to get us to ask ourselves these questions. Some of you may still be thinking why would he ever consider eating dog.  It is clear that Foer’s essay is not meant to persuade us to eat dog.  I feel that Foer’s purpose was to grab our attention to this debatable topic and persuade us to think outside the box.  He used a variety of rhetorical tools to cause us to at least stop and ponder what meat we are consuming and why we are comfortable or uncomfortable with these choices.  How about you – will you still eat chicken?

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Well that is all for now. I will be back next week with a new review of the Joel Salatin’s book entitled Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front.

Have a great week!

-Bonnie