Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 24 October 2016 issue)

Hi Kam,
My question is simple and we really need a definitive answer: Are hot dogs made either by or from actual dogs?
Puzzled

It is becoming obvious that the religious authorities really don’t like A&W. Recently, our esteemed religious authorities decided in their infinite wisdom to deny halal status to pretzel shop Auntie Anne’s. This is because Auntie Anne’s makes a thing called “pretzel dog”, which looks a bit like a hot dog.

The authorities also issued the warning to avoid using the word “beer” for soft drinks.

Although the initial attack was seemingly on Auntie Anne’s, I think we all know the real target is A&W. Where do you go if you want a hot dog and a root beer? A&W.

I have done some research and as far as I can tell, the classic hot dog is not made by dogs. Dogs are remarkable animals which can be trained to perform a multitude of tasks, but they lack of an opposable thumb. Nor is the classic hot dog made from dogs, although it was once rumoured to have been so.

Both the frankfurter sausage and the hamburger were introduced to America in the 19th century by enterprising German and Austrian immigrants. The story goes that these foods were originally from the German cities of Frankfurt and Hamburg. Small frankfurters are called wieners because they supposedly come from Vienna (Wien, in German). From the beginning of the 20th century, frankfurters became a popular snack outside baseball games.

How did the frankfurter become known as a hot dog? Sausages were among the first processed foods, and nobody knew what went into them in the early days. Even today, nobody really wants to know what is actually in our processed meats, but back then, the rumour was that the frankfurter was made from dog meat.

Germans love their pork, but back in the 19th century, they reputedly also enjoyed some dog meat. So, the rumour spread that these hot frankfurters were made from dogs. This may or may not have been true in the early days but it did not appear to stop their popularity. The sellers decided to own their notoriety as a badge of honour and embraced the name of hot dogs.

In today’s America, the hot dog is made from all sorts of unknown meats but probably not dog meat, and in a Malaysian mall, they are made from chicken. Of course, they are, because it would be insane to make them from anything else. Hot dog is just a name. It has nothing to do with dogs. Everyone knows that and it was never a problem until somebody made it a problem.

Meanwhile, and in a totally unrelated incident, a video has emerged of young girls at some ridiculous training camp being forced to go through a pit filled with water and, get this, snakes. Pythons were thrown into the pit as the girls desperately scrambled to get out. It is hard to see how being forced to go through a pit filled with water and snakes will help the girls in their education or future employment, and I’m sure Samuel L Jackson would agree with me when I say that I am tired of these snakes in this pit. The video shows cruel bullying and thankfully, the so-called instructors have been suspended (suspension or transfer now being, it seems, the highest available form of punishment).

More often than not, Malays will nobly defer to and trust in authority. It would be nice for that authority to consistently prove itself to be worthy of that trust.

Dear Kam,
My son is doing a PhD in Art at Cambridge University. I am so ashamed. Why doesn’t he want to be a real doctor? What did I do wrong? Why must he hurt me like this?
Shameful parent

Only 839 British school students sat for the A-level exam this summer and now their education ministry is axing Art History as part of swingeing cuts started by former minister Michael Gove.

Sounding a lot like an Asian parent, Gove said the Art History A-level had to go because it was a “soft” subject, meaning that in his opinion, it was not a real subject at all.

Gove was a leading proponent of the successful Brexit campaign, during which he said in the face of all the warnings, “I think people in this country have had enough of experts.”

By the way, if you want to buy some property in Britain, now is a good time because the sterling has dropped in value by 20% since the day of the referendum result.

I went to school in Britain and I didn’t even know there was an Art History A-level. I would definitely have taken it because, well, it is a soft subject and I needed all the help I could get (my final A-level results were D, D and E). For me, art would have been easy and really I wish somebody had told me it existed.

It’s hard to defend the inclusion of art in education when some people think that forcing children through a pit filled with snakes is a good idea. But I’ll try. The problem with exams-based education is that they have only right or wrong answers. I don’t like it, but it probably must be so, otherwise how else could teachers process thousands of students every year?

Unfortunately, there is a downside because children become conditioned to think that every situation only has a right or wrong answer, and that is just not true because often, the right answer is also the wrong one. The real question will elude them: How do you solve the problem and deal with the results?

If art were taught in Malaysian schools, then students would be confronted with questions, for which there are no right or wrong answers. A child might be shown a supposedly great work of art but he or she might simply not like it and can then be encouraged to explain why not. It would be a very good brain exercise. I don’t like the Mona Lisa and even now, it would really tax my brain to concoct a cogent reason. An answer might have to involve a perceived primacy of European art over Asian art within contemporary Asia. Discuss.

I happen to think that exposing children to art would be a good way to broaden minds and help prepare them for a difficult world. But perhaps throwing them into a pit filled with snakes is better? Discuss.

Reprinted with the kind permission of