I ate dinner at an ikesu place in Shinjuku last night. I’ve written about before ikesu before; the word itself means aquarium, which should give you a good idea of what goes on inside of an ikesu restaurant. You sit down, take a look at the fish swimming around in front of you and pick out one or two that look tasty. You eat the choicest bits as sashimi, usually off the still-gasping carcass of your unlucky meal, and then eat the rest fried, grilled or in soup.
It’s a fairly stark reminder of where our food comes from, but eating like that doesn’t particularly bother me. If you were going to eat fish anyway, it doesn’t seem to make much moral difference if the fish is killed on the factory ship it was caught on or just before you eat it.
So, I was surprised that I was so horrified when the folks sitting next to us ordered a “dancing abalone” (odori awabi). Abalone is a mollusc that is considered a delicacy in Japan and elsewhere. It has crunchy texture and, when fresh, tastes incredibly of the sea.
For dancing abalone, a live abalone is shucked, placed back in its own shell and delivered to the table along with a small brazier of hot coals. The abalone is set, inside its shell, on a grate over the coals and cooks.
The catch is that the shellfish is still very much alive when it starts heating up. Our neighbor’s abalone was still when it was first put on the grate, but it quickly started moving as it heated up. As it got hotter and hotter, it started writhing, spinning around in its shell, trying to escape from the heat. Finally, after two or three minutes, it had mostly stopped; the waitress came, sliced it and served it to the salivating customers while I looked on in horror.
The funny thing is that abalone are some of the oldest and most primitive sea creatures there are. They haven’t changed since the Cambrian era and even their scientific subgroup, archaeogastropoda, belies their age. So you can’t really talk about the abalone experiencing pain or suffering—all of its behavior is instinctual.
Nevertheless, it’s not a dish I’ll be ordering anytime soon.
Posted by pmk at January 16, 2006 1:37 AM | TrackBackso, um, pain and suffering isn’t found before the cambrian, huh? that sort of thinking itself is a bit primitive. i do find it rather interesting, though, that you’re more offended by the less evolved creature’s untimely death. maybe it’s the whole idea of a dancing mollusk that’s bothering you.
Posted by: bikefridaywalter at January 16, 2006 2:27 AM