King Ottokar's Sceptre: Do Syldavians Eat Dogs?

When Tintin asks the waiter in the Syldavian restaurant what the "szlaszeck" is, the waiter responds that it is the leg of a young dog in Syldavian sauce. This was intended to make Tintin think that he had just eaten Snowy, which was not true, but is it possible that szlaszeck or some other Syldavian dish was actually dog meat?

If they did their restaurants would not stay in business for very long, especially in non-dog eating countries.

How do we know if they do, it's a fictional place. Maybe dog is a delicacy.
I hear people in Korea eat dogs; can anyone from there back me up on this?

I think that's just a malicious and racist rumor, and I don't put any stock in it.

No, it is based on fact; although the selling and eating of dog meat has been illegal since the Eighties for reasons of safety and hygiene, even the local press have found that it is still being sold for human consumption in S. Korea, as have the BBC.
As for the rest of the world, dog has been eaten in most countries at one time or another, although it is largely illegal or taboo in most of Europe.
According to Wikipedia (I know it isn't always reliable, but at least it's a start if you want to research more yourself) dog meat could still be bought in Paris in 1910 (they don't mention Belgium).

Not surprising.
There was a case a few years ago of a guy on Brixton Market had a take away food stand selling hot dogs, burgers the usual stuff.
However this guy was serving up all kinds of animal from gorilla meat to kangaroo meat - all sorts of food a person should not consume.
He would import all sorts of illegal meat and sell it - basically if it was illegal it was served between two buns.

Hmm… Thing is, kangaroo meat isn't illegal to sell; however while there have been cases of suppliers of bushmeat from primates being prosecuted in London (such as from a business in Dalston Market, which may be the case you are remembering), it is so scarce (gorillas for example have a tiny population, and the selling of their meat definitely illegal) that the prices charged for it would take it well out of the market for being sold “between two buns”…

Anyway, this is steering a bit off topic, so getting back to the main course - I mean subject: eating dog.

I think that the waiter is just getting a bit of fun out of winding Tintin up about Snowy - although Syldavians could be eating dog, it is more likely that they weren’t.

Reading this thread I'm suddenly beginning to fell rather nauseous to say the least! If you lot are trying to make a case for vegetarianism then you have done a great job!

The thing that's important to note here is that our general distaste for the thought of eating dogs is likely cultural. Westerners see dogs as man's best friend, and ascribe humanistic traits where there are none. If you think about it, dogs are among a select group of animals (horses are the only other I can think of) about which we have this stigma.

For example, scientists believe that squids and octopi have the same intelligence as dogs, maybe moreso, but we aren't taking calamari off the menu any time soon.

The best example I can think of of a society which constantly ate dogs was the pre-Columbian Aztec Empire. The Aztecs farmed dogs, and only for the reason that they ate them. Apparently they did not see their potential as retrievers, or anything like that.