If you don’t want to see how some people in China figured out how to deep fry a fish, while keeping it alive, well then DON’T click play on this video.

Kelly O—formerly a Stranger staff photographer, music writer, Drunk of the Week columnist, and more!—finished art school and a soul-crushing internship at a corporate advertising agency in Detroit,...

38 replies on “Lunchtime Quickie: Mean Old China”

  5. A delicacy in Singapore is money brain…live monkey brain. The monkey is in a recessed cage in the middle of the table and its head is screwed into place. The skull is then sawed off and people dig in.

    Arguments about cultural relativism…NOW!

  9. I prefer to rip the carrots and celery from the ground and listen to their screams of pain as I devour them.

    (you know they scream, right?)

  14. @13 True, and I appreciate your attempt to inject some levity into this disturbing topic.

    I am at once both totally squicked out by this and totally curious as to what it tastes like. Cultural relativism be damned, those Chinese sure come up with some wacky shit.

  15. Dan, at least everything in 2 girls, 1 cup is consensual. And all you have to suppress is the urge to vomit, rather than the urge to go find these people and see how they like being deep-fried alive.

  17. Great. Now even my attempt at pescetarianism feels like rampant cruelty of the worst sort. Blech.

    I’m assuming the movement is postmortem twitches and such; still appalling.

  19. @14 – It probably tastes like deep fried fish. Why would it taste any different? The fact that the nerves are firing won’t change the flavor, not that a human could detect anyway.

    That fact (that there would be no difference in flavor) is what makes this hideous. It’s hideous because it’s gratuitous. Functionally, the only difference between a live deep fried fish and a half-second dead (aka fresh) deep fried fish is that the nerves are still firing and some of that sensory system is still functioning. That’s fucked up, and completely unnecessary.

  20. @14 – It probably tastes like deep fried fish. Why would it taste any different? The fact that the nerves are firing won’t change the flavor, not that a human could detect anyway.

    That fact (that there would be no difference in flavor) is what makes this hideous. It’s hideous because it’s gratuitous. Functionally, the only difference between a live deep fried fish and a half-second dead (aka fresh) deep fried fish is that the nerves are still firing and some of that sensory system is still functioning. That’s fucked up, and completely unnecessary.

  22. Geez. A video of how a foreign culture prepares it’s food generates such heated comments. You don’t hear Asians generalizing about fat obese Americans and the way they “hunt” for their food in fast food joints. A little perspective, please. I’m sure if this was European food preparation video, there would be nary a negative comment. My take.

  23. Oh shut up, spireax. Anybody consuming an animal that at least appears to still be alive would get the same response from me. And I highly doubt that this is how most Chinese people eat fish.

  25. Who said anything about most Chinese people? And believe me…they have MANY unique ways of serving living things other than fish that most Americans would find revolting. Who are we to say their cooking methods are not acceptable? I’m just saying…

  26. By saying “how a foreign culture prepares it’s [sic] food” you seemed to be making a statement about that culture, not a few oddballs.

    I’m fine with making a judgment call about any culture whose cooking methods (or animal husbandry for that matter) call for deliberate additional pain and suffering. That includes American culture.

  27. Any small segment of a culture, I should say, unless there’s a widespread group of people somewhere who gets their kicks from this eating-alive junk.

  30. Food tastes fresher the closer it is to its source — of life, and sometimes of location. The best tempura I ever tasted was of a prawn that five minutes before, right when we walked in, was in the aquarium next to the entrance. This was not in North America, but in Tokyo.

    For those having a minor freak-out about the arguably garish video, you may nevertheless find an old episode of “This American Life” (episode #116, 23 November 2001) on this topic particularly illuminating. Better yet, google “The 6 Most Sadistic Dishes from Around the World”.

  31. Speaking as a veg-aquarium, this is an abomination. This is worse than the restaurant Sames on TV Funhouse, the one where “You Eat What You Are.”

  32. Meh… this is just more evidence for what I already believe: humans aren’t all that evolved from the rest of the animals on this planet.

  35. Adding to #34, multiple times while living in Japan I got to eat sushi so fresh, the body it came from was still trying to breath on the dish on which it was served. The sushi chef takes the live fish, removes its internal organs, cuts the edible portion into sashimi slices with the head, tail, and bones connecting them served next to it. Even though the fish is dead, it still has these nerves reflexes – just like a lobster dropped into a boiling pot of water, head first, will frequently spasm * after it is dead*. Their practice is no more savage than ours is with lobster, and I can assure you the sashimi flavor is indeed best when it is that fresh…

  36. the idea of this makes me sick. it is evil.
    i didn’t watch the video, but i can see from the comments and Kello O’s blurb that this is about torture.
    it is disturbing that some just find this entertaining.

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