I attended culinary school with several international students and doubt that many of them would be OK with cooking an animal with the purpose of keeping it alive. Many of them had issues with boiling the lobsters alive so I cannot see most of them being happy about this practice.

On a side note, your recipe looks wonderful and I can’t wait to try it.

I get the concept of having your fish as fresh as possible when you eat it. But eating a fish with its head still breathing is plain disgusting, even by Thai standards. I mean a friggin fish, come on. I’m not a vegetarian or even close to one. In fact, I am an avid fisherman.

I have no problems with my food looking like an animal (and I prefer deep fried whole fish rather than just the filets. I really dont give a shit that my food was once alive, and this is one thing im happy that I wasnt raised in America. I take a mallet to the head of the fish, and once its dead, remove scales and guts ASAP, cut slits in the side and throw it in the frying pan. Or cut the head off if you want to. But keeping the head still bobbing and breathing, screw that.

However, contradictory to what I said above, the video of the octopus actually looks kinda delicious. Dont cook it, eat it fresh thats the best way. I guess I’m only affected when its an animal with a spine thats being cooked and eaten alive.

And regarding the recipe, the scallions, ginger and cilantro should be sprinkled over the fish just before the hot oil is poured on, not after. Makes a world of difference in the flavor of the sauce that results.

im sorry, but i find this pretty disturbing, i have no quams with eating meat that looks like an animal, but keeping it alive whilst gutting and cooking it is cruel, unnecessary and from the chefs point of view, lacking human decency.

You wouldnt do all this to any kind of livestock, so why to a fish??

I have no problem with fresh fish, keeping it alive right up untill the point of preperation is the best possible way the dish could be cooked, but to do so whilst it is still alive is sick.

for arguments sake, lets say we wern’t top of the food chain, and you were to be skinned, gutted and cooked alive, would you be happy about it??

whislt a fish doesnt have the same intellegence or morals as a human, it still feels pain, and surely any decent human being could empathise with this

sorry if i’ve offended anyone but i find this sadisctic and inhumane

I am in no sense of the word an animal activist (infact i despise most of their methods and arguments), nor am i trying to brew trouble, I am simply saying gutting and cooking a fish still alive is completely wrong.

and no I am not american!!

Denise
http://www.WineFoodPairing.blogspot.com

I love this post because it exposes our (my) true hypocrisy. For all our American chit chat about sustainability, eating local and knowing where our food comes from, we still are squeamish when we are confronted with being that closely connected to the food chain.

Still, I ran screaming from your apartment when I saw these videos because I don’t think I could eat something still gasping for air on the plate and I know I couldn’t scale and gut a fish while it was still alive. I know my American upbringing has made me squeamish and hypocritical, but I’ll take my fish dead and my meat in slabs on styrofoam. Guilty as charged.

Kim