Azucena (Dog Meat)

Coined from the Tagalog word aso (“dog”) and the Spanish cena (dinner), azucena is the stylized spelling inspired by the Spanish name of the white lily flower. Azucena used to be a very popular name for girls in the Philippines before the word asosena was coined. There are various Tagalized spellings.

Up until the importation of Western sensibilities, dogmeat was a popular pulutan (canape) during drinking bouts. In the Mountain Province, dogs are raised for eating, but in the depressed parts of the city where dog eating is also a clandestine passion, dog-eaters scan the highways for dogs that have been run over. Or they find a family who wants to get rid of a fierce pet, or in desperation… dognap one.

How is Azucena prepared?

The dog is opened from stern to stern and its hair singed. The intestines are made into tinumis. The dog flesh is scrubbed and quartered.

Some like to eat dogmeat raw, ony slightly seared on the skin, and with a sawsawan made out of uncooked liver mashed with vinegar, garlic and onions.

Others like their azucena fully cooked, adobo-style, with a handful of hot red peppers. Raw dogmeat is served with gin, and adobo dogmeat is served with beer.

Canines are resistant to prion diseases that grotesquely kills other mammals. In effect, dog meat may be one of the few meats that is very unlikely to give humans the very debilitating and absolutely fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).