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Would You Order Live Octopus?
By
Jen Carlson
Published May 4, 2010
Modified May 4, 2010
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By
Jen Carlson
Published May 4, 2010
Modified May 4, 2010
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Last month PETA announced their distaste for restaurants serving live octopus. They wrote letters, protested, and are currently investigating the issue throughout the city. For now, the twitching dish is still being served up, and the Daily News just sent one brave writer to sink his teeth into it.
Daniel Edward Rosen headed to a PETA target in Flushing, called Sik Gaek, where he ordered san-nakji—"the tentacles of the nakji, a small octopus native to Korean and Chinese waters, are chopped up and served with garlic and jalapeño peppers." A manager at the restaurant says once it's ordered it is "killed instantly by having its head split open and its brain removed. The octopus is then immediately chopped up and served to a customer" (while nerve activity keeps it moving). Here's a look at another way of preparing and eating san-nakji.
The writhing dish latches its suction cups to everything (chopsticks, the roof of your mouth, etc), but Rosen concludes it was a "surprisingly palatable experience, especially when dipped in chojang, a hot pepper sauce. Some of the pieces were gelatinous and disgusting, while the tougher pieces—after much chewing—went down easily." In the end, however, he declares that he prefers his future meals to be fully cooked.
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octopus
peta
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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