Dog, the man explained as he dabbed a few last coats of dye on the dangling paws, was a delicacy - more expensive than any other meat. Every day he cooked three for his soup shop and occasionally added two more if he was catering a local wedding or feast. He laughed uproariously when I explained the Western antipathy towards tossing man's best friend into the cooking pot.

"There is dog for pet and dog for meat," he told me as he lowered the carcass to the puddled cement. "Meat dog is like chicken," Thwack, the head rolled away, "or pig." Thwack, the paws came off, both at once. "Pet dog good for guarding house, so no should eat." With one, well-aimed blow he split the carcass from neck to navel. He took a handful of wobbly red rib meat and gave it a decisive shake. "Is meat!" he said again, "what different from a pig?"

My culinary education was temporarily aborted when he lifted out the innards and discovered a bloated stomach sack the size of a softball. A high-speed, low-voiced conversation with the wife ensued. Apparently the dog farm had allowed the animals to gorge on rice just before delivering them in order to increase their weight. I commiserated with the angry couple, secretly pleased to see the inventive Vietnamese for once applying their entrepreneurial machinations on each other, instead of me.

When the husband had gotten over his disgust at such dishonest trading practices he pulled the remaining intestines out of the dog's anus and handed them to his wife. She split the skull, scooped out the brains and mixed them with a bowl of coagulated blood, a few intestinal odds and end, and rice. In minutes the wrinkled intestines had taken on the shape of a lumpy python and what remained of the dog had begun to look remarkably like a small but tasty pig.

In deference to my golden retriever, waiting patiently for me to return home and throw a Frisbee for her, I declined the invitation to a meat-dog lunch.