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On the Plate Tonight: Thursday, August 28, 2025

Bone-in ribeye, topped with butter-sauteed, sliced shitake mushrooms; steamed asparagus; baked yukon gold potato. Olive oil rather than butter over the veggies. Light salt, generous black pepper. Liberal use of Tabasco Family Reserve. I seasoned the meat with a dry rub of salt, garlic power, onion powder, and cayenne pepper about 3hrs before grilling, and let it get to room temp. Asparagus in the InstantPot. Potato cooked in microwave, and then a few minutes more in the air-fryer covered in olive oil. Rating: 65/100 Delicious but basic. That I wasn't actually cooking until 10pm (on a work day) probably accounts for the mediocrity.

🐶🍽️ Trump's Oikeiophagy Slur

 

🐶🍽️ What's the Scientific Term for "Eating Pets"?

As per Trump's infamous accusation... is there a clinical term?

🔬 TL;DR:

There’s no scientific term for “eating pets” — because pets aren’t a biological category, and scientists generally don’t write papers about consuming Fido.


🧠 Greek Check: Is there a Word for “Pet”?

Not really.

  • Ancient Greeks didn’t do pets. They had working animals, not cuddle buddies.

  • No single classical word = “pet.”

Closest you get:

  • ὁικείος (oikeios) — “of the household” 🏠

  • θῆλυμμα (thêluma) — “darling” (but metaphorical, not zoological)

  • Modern Greek: κατοικίδιο ζώο = “domestic animal” — still kinda cold.


🧪 Let's Build a Term:

If you want a realistic-sounding, pseudo-scientific adjective to describe this alleged behavior, go with:

👉 Oikeiophagous

(adj.) characterized by the consumption of household animals

Why it slaps:

  • ✅ Sounds Greek (because it is)

  • ✅ Dead serious, faintly ominous

  • ✅ Suggests domestic betrayal and culinary depravity in one word


🧠 Bonus Variants:

  • Oikeiophagy — the noun (the act itself)

  • Oikeiophage — the eater (e.g., “a known oikeiophage”)


🎯 In Use:

“His campaign peddled oikeiophagous hysteria—dog whistles with actual dogs on the menu.”

“No evidence of oikeiophagy has ever been found, despite the moral panic.”


💡 Summary:

Trump’s dog-eating slur was never meant to be scientific—it was a xenophobic trope. But if you need a term that sounds like it came from a UN ethics tribunal or a canceled anthropology textbook…

🏆 Oikeiophagous is your word.

Comments

the best of what exactly?