Fresh Octopus (video)

http://cyrusfarivar.com/blog/?p=1294

G'night.

Best,
Michael

The comment section is just as good. Read all the way to the end.

I felt that someone ought to put them out of their misery. I realize they probably weren't feeling anything, but helpless writhing doesn't seem happy to me.

I don't ever want to eat anything that fresh. I like stuff to be noticeably dead.

Cynthia wrote:I felt that someone ought to put them out of their misery. I realize they probably weren't feeling anything, but helpless writhing doesn't seem happy to me.

By doing what? Killing them again? My wife is a pathologist and regularly gets surgical specimens that are still squirming. When Patient X's small intestine is still writhing 20 minutes after being removed, I doubt it's doing so in misery

(I realize these aren't entirely analogous since there's some neural tissue in octopus legs that governs their movement, but I hope the point is still clear... that just because recently excised tissue is moving doesn't mean there's consciousness present.)

Dmnkly wrote:By doing what? Killing them again? My wife is a pathologist and regularly gets surgical specimens that are still squirming. When Patient X's small intestine is still writhing 20 minutes after being removed, I doubt it's doing so in misery

Yep -- I fully understand that. But a gut reaction is a gut reaction, and my gut reaction was that it looked like something writhing in pain. Dropping it in boiling water for half a minute would probably stop it.

Like eating the okra stew at Palace Gates. Even knowing it tastes good, it's still hard to get past the visuals. Our brains get information from our eyes that has to be dealt with, even if prior knowledge or the best assurances of others contradicts what we're seeing.

The tentacles remind me of a half-run-over rabbit I saw on the road once -- obviously not going to survive, with it's hind quarters smashed into the pavement, but its front half still frantically trying to get away.

Cynthia wrote: Dropping it in boiling water for half a minute would probably stop it.

But then that would cook it.

Incidentally, every time I ate this in Korea--nakchi, it's called, a specific species of small cephalopod--I was invariably punched in the arm and reminded how much "power" it would give me. It's otherwise known as "Korean Viagra."

HI,

At markets in Chinatown, there is a high demand for really fresh fish. It is not unusual for the fishmonger to put a prepared fish on display with its heart exposed and still beating. When my nieces were tiny, they got a real kick out of this. Hmmmm next time I will take a digital film clip because it really is pretty neat.

There are cultures who are totally revolted by our eating live oysters. Often those oysters are not remotely dead when we send them down our throats. Since they are not animated, then it takes away some of the yuck factor.

There was the occasion when I bought a live turtle, then per instructions kept it a few days on a diet to cleanse it. By the time we had to do the deed, it had already gotten to semi-pet status. Ultimately we could not bring ourselves to eat it. While even though I pride myself in my ability to suspend apprehensions to eat exotica. The game changes once it has a name.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:The game changes once it has a name.

Yes. Let us not forget the lesson of Homer and Pinchy the Lobster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ksEihdkv-E

"Oh god that's tasty! I wish Pinchy were here to enjoy this!"

Best,
Michael

Cynthia wrote:The tentacles remind me of a half-run-over rabbit I saw on the road once -- obviously not going to survive, with it's hind quarters smashed into the pavement, but its front half still frantically trying to get away.

I don't know if it's the hormones, but that visual made me tear up a little bit.

Is rabbit tasty?

HI,

I did happen upon a roadkill pheasant. I knew it was freshly dead because it was still wet with blood. I took it home where I not only ate it, I also taxidermied it.

Better living through roadkill!

Regards,

m'th'su wrote:

Cynthia wrote: Dropping it in boiling water for half a minute would probably stop it.

But then that would cook it.

Yeah. But as Filipe Fernández-Armesto notes in Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food, "Culture begins when the raw gets cooked."

That said, I can enjoy a little raw tuna or a nice carpaccio, but those are both clearly dead.

Cynthia wrote:

Dmnkly wrote:By doing what? Killing them again? My wife is a pathologist and regularly gets surgical specimens that are still squirming. When Patient X's small intestine is still writhing 20 minutes after being removed, I doubt it's doing so in misery

Yep -- I fully understand that. But a gut reaction is a gut reaction, and my gut reaction was that it looked like something writhing in pain.

I understand... the head and the gut aren't always necessarily on the same page

Cynthia wrote:Yeah. But as Filipe Fernández-Armesto notes in Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food, "Culture begins when the raw gets cooked."

I hope Fernandez-Armesto footnoted Levi-Strauss on that one.

Cynthia wrote:Yep -- I fully understand that. But a gut reaction is a gut reaction, and my gut reaction was that it looked like something writhing in pain.

Dmnkly wrote:I understand... the head and the gut aren't always necessarily on the same page

Precisely.

David Hammond wrote: I hope Fernandez-Armesto footnoted Levi-Strauss on that one.

I checked the list of attributions for the section on raw vs. cooked, and Levi-Strauss's name was in fact in the list.