Pet Food

I was working at the Boston Latin School library a while back when a tiny Chinese girl asked me to help her find "a book about pets."
"What kind of pets?" I asked.
She smiled sweetly, mysteriously, and replied "any kind of pets. I love animals. I want a pet."
Not having much to do and not possessing a clear mental map of the Library of Congress, I led her to a shelf where I'd seen a lot of animal books. As I remembered, though, they were about animals in the wild: big cats, poisonous snakes, animals of the rain forest, animals of the desert.
"Nothing here looks very useful, " I lamented.
"I love animals," she said again.
"In that case, just about any of these books would do." I was trying to be jolly and move things along.
"I had a pet rabbit once."
"Really? That's nice."
"But my dad cooked him."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."
"Yes, it was very sad."
Sad, indeed, I thought, to want a pet in a culture that prizes critters for their culinary features.
I was wondering what to say next, when she added: "Then I had a pet fish." Pause. "I liked him very much." Pause. "But my dad cooked him, too."
"That must have been terrible for you." I said.
"It was. But then I had a pet frog."
"That seems like a safe choice."
"But it wasn't. My dad put him in a soup."
It dawned on me that this smart little girl might be goofing on me and my notions of Chinese people eating dogs and cats. So I took a chance and asked her, "was it delicious?"
She gave me a big grin and said, "yeah!"
"Well, " said I, feeling useful at last, "maybe you'll find something else tasty on this shelf."
"Thanks!" said she.