And by GIF, I mean, you see the food moving on your computer screen.
Leg parts cannot be alive and conscious. The octopus's brain is somewhere else.* But that twitching fish is still alive, is it not? The head is intact, still attached to the body which is slivered up for the diner's delectation. I've never seen — or felt that I'm seeing — so much expression on the face of a fish.
The article is "An Olympic Challenge: Eat All the Korean Food That Visitors Won’t." Like you're not sophisticated and inclusive of other human cultures if you are squeamish.
Many restaurant owners here... [say] it has felt as if the Games were not even going on. Visitors don’t seem to be venturing outside the Olympic bubble, they said.Elsewhere in the NYT, we are beaten over the head for our shortcomings in empathy. And, to be fair, there is a call to empathy here: empathy for the Korean restauranteur.
I was determined not to be that sort of visitor. So I’ve swanned into press boxes with pork broth practically dripping off my clothes. I’ve interviewed some of the world’s top athletes with raw garlic on my breath. I am beginning to sense some of my colleagues growing alarmed with my behavior. But I can’t stop.
___________
* Suffering? To answer that question, you must consider 2 subquestions: 1. "Octopuses are super-smart … but are they conscious?" and 2. "Do you really stay conscious after being decapitated?"
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82 comments:
Octopuses and fishes eat their food live...why shouldn't we eat them live?
Some victim of the French Revolution agreed to keep blinking as long as he could and went for 10 seconds after his head was cut off.
Read long ago someplace I don't remember.
Racist, sexist and homophobic. Nowhere in the article does the elitist NYTimes note the extra obstacles faced by minorities, women and gays in getting proper access to squirming food north of 125th Street.
Why do people writing about food insist on these cringe-making evocations of their postprandial state? If they write about a meal they're always slurping and gobbling, and then afterwards they have pork broth soaking into their attire and raw garlic on their breath. They're not making this stuff sound delicious or themselves sound any kind of sophisticated or even cool. Gag.
Maybe this is Western affluent privilege speaking, but eating something while it's still alive holds no appeal to me.
Another example of expression on the face of a fish.
when it comes to trout, nothing says fresh like still flopping in the pan.
This is why I bring a skillet and stove with me fishing
Actually, octopi have as many or more neurons in their arms as in their central nervous system. Completely unlike chordates, their arms really are capable of independent action, and a severed octopus arm will in fact "try" to do things for quite a while until the neurons die.
Octopi are pretty intelligent, many think comparable to dogs, and half those "brains" are in their arms.
The Jazz Age playboys beat you to it eating live goldfish.
Today's Spirit Cooking/Aleister Crowley elites have moved on to eating human flesh.
What, no dog? Pussy.
I seem to recall that frog legs will twitch when a little salt is applied.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_brains
I've eaten balut, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_(food), and I lived in Koria for a year, and there were all kinds of things they eat that I wouldn't think of consuming.
Octopi are pretty intelligent, many think comparable to dogs, and half those "brains" are in their arms.
I was scuba diving one time and spear fishing. Me and my scuba buddy had chased an octopus into a hole and we were trying to get it out. While doing so I noticed another octopus in a nearby hole. It was stacking rocks in the entrance of the hole in order to conceal itself.
I have been served the raw, wriggling octopus tentacles before. I did not eat it (the Korean fellow I was dining with choked down one tentacle -- it was kind of a waste of food). I have eaten stew in Korea where they chopped up the live octopus into the boiling water, but the bits of tentacle weren't moving at all by the time I ate them.
I've also been served shrimp sushi raw and twitching. I waited until I thought it was completely done, and ate it, but bit off the tail bit (I don't like eating that), and watched it twitch around for a bit afterwards. It was a fun experience, but next time I'll just ask them to steam it.
I've also had crab leg sashimi, with some small trepidation that the meat would wriggle a bit as I slurped it out of the shell, but nothing happened.
Koreans, like their ethnic twin Japanese, will eat anything that washes up on a beach.
Nope, would not and could not do the Octopus. Yikes!
The thing is, everyday Korean staples like gukbap (soup with rice), doenjangjjigae (bean paste stew), kimchi jjigae (kimchi stew), seolleongtang (beef soup), dalk jjim (chicken stew), galbi (barbecue beef), samgyeopsal (barbecue pork belly), bibimbap (rice mixed with vegetables and pepper paste), and so on are delicious. Gulbi (a kind of salted fish) is more expensive but also delicious. Korean Chinese food like Jjajangmyeon (noodles in black bean sauce) are also great. Street food like Hotteok (flat fried pastry with sweet filling) or Tteokbokgi (rice cakes in sweet red pepper sauce) are good too.
Most Koreans don't eat raw Nakji every day. The "fancy" Korean food is just not as tasty as the everyday food.
A U trying to find Top 10 Best Automatic Electric Dog Door in 2018
It's the ever-present and permeating smell of kimchee that keeps people at bay. When my daughter was married to a Korean, they had a separate refrigerator just for the kimchee.
At Brownsea Island I pulled clams out of the mud, rinsed them off in sea water and popped them in my mouth, all while standing knee deep in the Atlantic Ocean.
The "fancy" Korean food is just not as tasty as the everyday food.
My husband and I were treated to a 'fancy' Japanese dinner at a private corporate club in Tokyo and it included 'sea slug' among other delicacies. Not nearly as tasty as everyday Japanese food. I still wonder if sea slug is really enjoyed or if it is just a snobbery, like snails in France.
Gahrie, my parents used to pick up oysters off the beach and eat them right out of the shell. Nowadays there is probably too much sewage pollution on Hood Canal to safely do this.
The article is "An Olympic Challenge: Eat All the Korean Food That Visitors Won’t." Like you're not sophisticated and inclusive of other human cultures if you are squeamish.
I have been warned not to eat kimchi without an adequate supply of Gas-Ex and Imodium. Caused me to pass on eating it.
The brain of the octopus is not centralized as it is in vertebrates. Each tentacle has a semi-independent set of dispersed neurons which can and does function as a separate "brain".
On my first scuba dive back in '77 the instructor had us find scallops, pry them off, clean them and eat them under water. This became a habit. Cabazon are a sort of pre-historic fish. Very ugly with a shark-type skin. They live for hours out of the water and when you fillet them, their carcass continues to flop around.
On the other hand, when I was in the service, the black guys said they didn't go down on their women because their Daddy taught them not to eat anything that could get up and walk away.
Strokes and folks.
“I've also had crab leg sashimi, with some small trepidation that the meat would wriggle a bit as I slurped it out of the shell, but nothing happened.”
The NYT says Koreans are offended by the use of the Japanese word “sashimi” to refer to their food.
"I still wonder if sea slug is really enjoyed or if it is just a snobbery, like snails in France. "
I think snails are good, as long as they're cooked with lots of butter and garlic.
Then again, sautéing my old sneakers with butter and garlic would probably make them taste good. But if you don't mind raw oysters, I'm not sure what the objection to snails is.
I am related to a microbiologist. I will not eat raw food.
I've never eaten snails, exiled. But, as you say, just about anything sauteed in butter and garlic is worth eating. ;-)
I eat everything I can when I visit Korea.m Had it all... street food, standard fare as well as banquets serving only 'royal' cuisine. And yes, I've eaten dog. I make kim-chee all the time. My German wife loves it!
Had dancing prawns in Japan (the live shimp is eviscerated at your table and you eat the crustacean as it is still wiggling), fugu (poisonous blowfish), fish eyeballs, and a bunch of other stuff. Perhaps the oddest dish was served to me in Beijing... deep-fried scorpions and duck throats (with the tongue attached).
Kinda tough to make at home.
Always been adventurous food-wise. , That attitude has led me to many great meals and few poor ones.
I did draw the line once. There is a regional 'delicacy' in Germany known as "spider cheese' (Spinnenkaese) where the fresh-made cheese is laid down to cure in a box full of small spiders who then burrow into the cheese and also encase the rounds in their web - all of which imparts a certain flavor to the cheese. One is supposed to eat the ripened cheese live spiders, web and all.
Oh, and I won't eat currywurst, either.
Then again, sautéing my old sneakers with butter and garlic would probably make them taste good.
And they would have the same texture as escargot. Like trying to eat rubber bands sauteed in garlic and butter.
Re: Althouse:
The NYT says Koreans are offended by the use of the Japanese word “sashimi” to refer to their food.
Yes, Korea is insanely nationalistic. But if I said hoe, no one would know what I was talking about.
In any event, seeing as I ate the crab in Tokyo (I heartily recommend the restaurant by the way), there's no reason for my Korean brethren to get offended.
Not so fast Dust Bunny! Recall this old saw: when you mix shit and ice cream the result always tastes like the former rather than the latter. Or so I've been told.
-sw
The brain of the octopus is not centralized as it is in vertebrates
Yeah, it's weird that despite that cephalopods are by far the smartest of all the invertebrates with the highest brain-to-body ratio. I believe octopuses have demonstrated limited tool use and some capacity for observational learning. And cuttlefish mimicry seems pretty highly sophisticated.
Re: mockturtle:
My husband and I were treated to a 'fancy' Japanese dinner at a private corporate club in Tokyo and it included 'sea slug' among other delicacies. Not nearly as tasty as everyday Japanese food. I still wonder if sea slug is really enjoyed or if it is just a snobbery, like snails in France.
It varies. I've never had sea slug that I enjoyed, and fugu (the poisonous blowfish) is honestly just kind of bland -- they serve whole meals where every course is fugu (sashimi, deep fried, stewed, testicles, etc.) and it's just not that great considering how expensive it is. On the other hand, I generally do like the "fancy" kaiseki.
But that twitching fish is still alive, is it not? The head is intact, still attached to the body which is slivered up for the diner's delectation.
Maybe yes, maybe no.
Fish are usually killed, when line caught, by smacking them in the head with a club.
Even with the brain offline, many will twitch for quite some time (even with the head cut off), as the nervous system fires off randomly.
Yes, Korea is insanely nationalistic.
Comes from being invaded and conquered all the damn time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Korea
And they really, really do not like the Japanese.
I'll try most anything food but draw the line at head cheese. Looks like jelled vomit.
The NYT says Koreans are offended by the use of the Japanese word “sashimi” to refer to their food.
But not any more offended than the use of any Japanese word in their presence. Though the Korean family that ran a sushi place in my old neighborhood didn't seem to fit the NYT stereotype.
I believe octopuses have demonstrated limited tool use and some capacity for observational learning.
Like I said, I observed one in the wild stacking rocks in a small hole entrance to conceal itself from me and my scuba buddy who were trying to get another octopus out of another hole. If that isn't limited tool use and observational learning I don't know what is.
I recall Charles Osgood once ate a live lobster. They cut it off at the tail, opened it up, and he was forking up the tail while the critter was still alive.
Apparently, in SE Asia some places will skin a live snake and then eat it. After watching it writhe on the floor in agony.
People can be such s**ts.
But we're soooooo bad for factory farming.
and fugu (the poisonous blowfish) is honestly just kind of bland
I've had alligator tail that wasn't breaded and deep fried and it is the blandest thing I have ever tasted. It seems to have no flavor whatsoever.
I have also had frog legs and they really do taste just like chicken. But, since chicken is cheaper, I don't see any reason to get the frog legs.
I eat typical American food. I will, on occasion, eat sushi, but it must use only cooked ingredients.
I don't think I'm missing out on anything. And I would refuse at gunpoint to eat something while it was still alive, or dead for mere moments.
Interesting, just this morning I read this opinion piece from 2015. Eight writers look 50 years into the future and ask "what in today's world will appall our children." They consider everything from end-of-life care, our sugar habit, child care and baldness.
Meg Rosoff says the way we treat animals will horrify future generations. She quotes Leonardo da Vinci: “The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as now they look upon the murder of men.”
https://www.1843magazine.com/content/ideas/what-todays-world-will-appal-our-grandchildren
Meg Rosoff says the way we treat animals will horrify future generations. She quotes Leonardo da Vinci: “The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as now they look upon the murder of men.”
I'll start worrying about humans "murdering" animals immediately after we start prosecuting animals for "murdering" humans.
Mike the Headless Chicken
On September 10, 1945, farmer Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colorado was planning to eat supper with his mother-in-law and was sent out to the yard by his wife to bring back a chicken. Olsen chose a five-and-a-half-month-old Wyandotte chicken named Mike. The axe removed the bulk of the head, but missed the jugular vein, leaving one ear and most of the brain stem intact.
Due to Olsen's failed attempt to behead Mike, the chicken was still able to balance on a perch and walk clumsily. He attempted to preen, peck for food, and crow, though with limited success; his "crowing" consisted of a gurgling sound made in his throat.[3] When Mike did not die, Olsen instead decided to care for the bird. He fed it a mixture of milk and water via an eyedropper, and gave it small grains of corn.
Once his fame had been established, Mike began a career of touring sideshows in the company of such other creatures as a two-headed baby. He was also photographed for dozens of magazines and papers, and was featured in Time and Life magazines. Mike was put on display to the public for an admission cost of 25 cents. At the height of his popularity, the chicken's owner earned US$4,500 per month ($49,300 today) and was valued at $10,000.
In March 1947, at a motel in Phoenix on a stopover while traveling back from tour, Mike started choking in the middle of the night. He had managed to get a kernel of corn in his throat. The Olsens had inadvertently left their feeding and cleaning syringes at the sideshow the day before, and so were unable to save Mike.
Whoops. Forgot the attribution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken
While "octopuses" works as the plural of octopus as does mediums for media, a better choice is "octopodes." In no case is the plural "octopi," since octopus is a Greek and not a Latin word, though it looks like one.
I favor octopodes, since it wouldn't occur to me to say datums and stratums for data and strata.
Well, as long as we're talking about chickens, Werner Herzog's comment on chickens never gets old. Compare, however, the ending of Herzog's movie "Stroszek."
Trump orders his steak well-done.
JMS said...
Interesting, just this morning I read this opinion piece from 2015. Eight writers look 50 years into the future and ask "what in today's world will appall our children." They consider everything from end-of-life care, our sugar habit, child care and baldness. "
Do any of them mention late-term abortions?
ugh. I get closer to becoming a vegetarian every day.
mockturtle said...
I'll try most anything food but draw the line at head cheese. Looks like jelled vomit.
2/21/18, 12:14 PM
I've never been able to try it either.
The worst thing I have ever eaten is chitlings. You could duplicate the taste if you cooked a turd in vinegar.
Is this really "ever min HaChai?"
https://www.ou.org/torah/mitzvot/seven-universal-laws/noachide_laws_6/
"Like Jews, non-Jews may not eat “eiver min hachai,” a limb torn from a live animal. This law was stated explicitly to Noah in Genesis 9:4. This mitzvah is the one that may or may not have been commanded to Adam.
My business travel to Taiwan, Korea and Japan taught me that as a Southern boy with a momma from Pittsburgh, my early diet of cabbage rolls alternating with fried chicken liver prepared me well for the foods of the Far East.
"Well, as long as we're talking about chickens, Werner Herzog's comment on chickens never gets old. Compare, however, the ending of Herzog's movie "Stroszek.""
That's the first Herzog movie I ever saw. It looked good written up in the New Yorker and was in some arty Manhattan location in a double feature which I didn't think I'd want to put up with sitting through. I was interested in "Stroszek" by the subject matter and description but didn't think I'd like the second movie, "Aguirre the Wrath of God." What an experience! "Aguirre the Wrath of God" has been in my top-5 favorite movies for many years.
Anyway, much of "Stroszek" takes place in Wisconsin.
Since at least Etruscan times octopus has figured significantly in the Italian piscivorous diet, and the techniques of catching them Italian-style have endured through the ages. A prime octopus fishing ground is the waters between Capri and Barano D'ischia. The bottom there is quite level and sandy with few rocky outcrops, consequently, the native octopuses must compete strenuously for the few available crevasses and caves in which to shelter and reproduce. The Neopolitan fishermen exploit this condition to make their catch of piovra. The fishermen lower earthenware jugs to the sea bottom attached to small buoys. To the roving homeless octopus the jug looks like a perfect lair, so he moves in. Later, when the fisherman hauls in the jug, the new tenant is usually reluctant to vacate his new abode, so he just hunkers down until he his extracted by hand. In order to prevent the captured mollusc from escaping (something they are most expert at) tradition obliges the fishermen to bite the poor 'pus between its eyes, which "kills" it instantly. Whether the animal is completely dead isn't proven, but the bite does prevent the catch from slithering out of the boxes into which they are tossed. The effectiveness of that ancient killing technique makes one doubtful of the notion of a separate consciousness in each tentacle.
Interestingly, Octopi have "brains" in each of their 8 legs as well as in their head. 9 brains, total, plus three hearts.
Out here in the Los Angeles metroplex we probably have 3 or 4 million Asians --all of whom seem to like to eat in restaurants with the good "down home" cooking from back home. That of course makes it a delightful place to live if you like to sample Asian cuisine.
Chinese restaurants frequently have tanks of live fish. It's not unusual to be in a restaurant where (a) you and your compnaions are the only North American "Caucasians" in the place; and (b) a group of Chinese (or Asians of some sort) have ordered a fish dish. They like their fish fresh. And to prove it's fresh, the fish is pulled out of the tank, put in a bus boy style gray plastic bin and brought to the table for inspection. It'll be flopping around and making a heck of a noise--the party that ordered the fish approves, and the fish is carried back into the kitchen to be prepared. It's certainly alive when the chef's knife makes the first cut, and may be still alive when it hits the pan.
On a related note, Switzerland has just passed a law making it a crime to put a live lobster in boiling water. I guess the Swiss chef is going to have to stab the lobster first.
What I hate about octopus is the pus. Yechh!
Out here in the Los Angeles metroplex we probably have 3 or 4 million Asians --all of whom seem to like to eat in restaurants with the good "down home" cooking from back home. That of course makes it a delightful place to live if you like to sample Asian cuisine.
True of Seattle, as well. Maybe not in total numbers but in proportion.
If you catch four octopuses off the Panama City pier, put them in the refrigerator crisper drawer don't be surprised when you enter your kitchen an hour later and they are on your walls, cabinets and ceiling. This happened in 1955 when refrigerators had latches, fuck yes they are smart.
Back in the Basque country, my grandpa used to take little me out to the harbor breakwaters to catch octopus. We used to come back with a little pail full for grandma to cook.
On the subject of multiple minds, there are many organisms which on cursory inspection appear to be a single being but are actually colonies, a prime example being the Portuguese Man o' War, a colonial siphonophore polyp often mistaken for a jellyfish. The Man o' War has no detectable nervous tissue or sensory organs, however, each member of the colony can individually perceive its local environment and respond. The cascade of individual members sensing and responding give the impression of the interactions of a single organism. Another example is the colonial algae genus Volvox. Though the Man o' War is an animal (or animals) and Volvox is more or less a plant, the two share a common trait in that both colonies are composed of reproductive and non-reproductive members and exhibit what looks like purposeful behavior — the Man o' War captures and digests fish and the Volvox migrates in the water column toward light and away from excessive heat, cold, or salinity.
The mark of a colonial organism is the ability of any member to adapt its tissues and functions to any of the various classes in the colony. For example, the member organisms of a Man o' War can either be part of the prey-capturing mechanism, i.e. the tentacles equipped with stinging nematocysts, part of the digestive system, part of the reproductive system, or the gas-filled float which keeps the colony at the surface and oriented with its tentacles downward and behind the the float. Experiments with the tentacles have shown that prolonged exposure to air and longwave sunlight will prompt the individual organisms in the tentacle to adapt their tissues into a float, essentially reassigning themselves to another colonial duty. Colonial insects such as bees and ants do something similar. Though the individual worker is a non-reproductive female, any larval bee that has not yet begun to pupate can become a reproductive member if given enough of the hormone-laden "royal jelly" as food.
I thought only the Japanese did that thing about serving live fish. Uggh.
I do think it should be banned. I'm in favor of not boiling live lobsters too. There are ethical limits to carnivorous behavior that justify banning some traditional practices, IMO.
This topic of eating animals while still alive is disgusting, cruel and ....nauseating.
I am a person who hunts and fishes (or did more in the past now that I am older). We hunted for sport and more importantly to eat our game. One of the main goals in hunting is to succeed and to do the "deed" with as little suffering as possible. The kills are to be quick and with as little mayhem as possible.
You don't TORTURE your food. That is inhumane.
I'm pretty sure cephalopods have more decentralized central nervous systems than we do. Look it up.
Octopus brains are tiny. Each arm/tentacle actually has a mini-brain of its own. I guess that explains what's going on. Checking on what you read from the news in a general knowledge resource (encyclopedia) before re-posting with nothing more than an opinion on it might be a good idea.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mind-of-an-octopus/
By coincidence I watched a decapitation yesterday at Kalighat, Kolkata.
DBQ warns: You don't TORTURE your food. That is inhumane.
I've been known to us a LIVE WORM as BAIT. :-O
I've never tortured my food but I have teased it unmercifully on occasion.
delectation
not to be confused with lactation.
sodal ye said...
By coincidence I watched a decapitation yesterday at Kalighat, Kolkata.
2/21/18, 6:22 PM
Go on, do tell...
Here you go, Harvey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali#/media/File:Kali_by_Raja_Ravi_Varma.jpg
I've been known to us a LIVE WORM as BAIT. :-O
I haven't.
Could never bring myself to impale living worms. They are better left in the garden to help create compost.
Dead shrimp in mesh bags ...great for sturgeon who do scavange by smell. Rubbery foamy looking wormy things. Dead crickets. Wooden Hula Poppers and other carved lures. Fancy metallic spinners and Salmon eggs. Rubber looking frogs with hooks. Flies tied to resemble insects made from feathers and other wispy things.
Fish usually don't care about smell (Sturgeon and catfish excepted) but are more about the movements, visual simulations and colors. Make your lure move and act like the real thing in the right environment for where the bait might live and in the optimal lighting conditions and the fish will bite. Fish really aren't that hard to trick.
Complaints about cultural appropriation are mostly just opportunities to signal that one knows more about other countries than the great unwashed. It's a snobbery that's cheaper than going to a Swiss school.
A day of commercial fishing will cure you of squeamishness.
here in Hong Kong the locals prize live fish, at the wet markets, street stalls selling food, you can see vendors arguing with customers and then choosing a fish, stunning it with a whack of the cleaver, and then taking off one fillet, which is popped in a bag for customer.
the fish, with second fillet still attached is left to wiggle about in shallow water waiting for another buyer, who gets a cheaper deal than the first one.
Kalighat is one of the oldest and most densely populated areas in Calcutta. One of the two significant temples to the Hindu god Kali is here. They sacrifice one ox and twenty goats here a day.
Tuesdays and Saturdays are special days and packed, so I went early yesterday. There are two main events in the temple. One is a likeness of Kali, the other is a smallish stone building with two ‘execution stations’. They carry in a goat and hold it in place with a bar that threads through a ‘U’ and chop it’s head off with a large curved blade, about the size of a machete. I was several feet away, at the head end.
Yes, in my opinion there was no doubt the animal’s head was still functioning for a short while after.
Up until 100 years ago they sacrificed criminals to Kali here. In remoter parts of India there are still human sacrifices going on.
Calcutta is an extraordinary place.
*its
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