I’ve been brooding and distracted, and trying to organize my thoughts for a serious post or two, but have hardly had a moment to myself all day, and so have nothing much to offer tonight.
Except, of course, this appetizing illustration of sodium-ion channels in action, courtesy of my daughter Chloe.
5 Comments
I viewed that vid with mixed feelings. Koreans are known to do similar things with their food, e.g., slice one side of a fish into sashimi while leaving the rest of the fish untouched, resulting in a fish that quivers on its tray when it’s served to you. The idea isn’t to be cruel: it’s to show the patron just how fresh the meal is.
Even so, watching the mutilated squid “dance” when the sauce was poured on it was… discomfiting for some reason. I’m not normally the squeamish type, and I’m usually the first to tell a joke involving some sort of animal cruelty, but some part of me was unsettled by what looked almost like torture. The squid’s mantle had been removed — its guts along with it — but the head and brain were still intact, which made the tableau look like a scene from “Braveheart.” It’s possible the squid felt nothing, but that thought was hard to maintain in the face of what I was seeing.
OK, yes, I exaggerate somewhat. It’s not as though I feel moral outrage or have suddenly discovered my inner PETA-lover. By the time a sea creature ends up in a restaurant, it’s too late to be talking about animal rights. I guess all I’m registering is a sort of low-grade disquiet, somewhat akin to what I feel when flying past a recent accident on a freeway: that’s too bad, there’s nothing I can do about it, and poof — now I’m past it.
Well if it was bad for you Kevin – just imagine what it must’ve been like for the multitude of bacteria when that wriggling mass hit the gastro-intestinal tract.
Indeed.
Kevin, I agree – I found that dancing-squid business very off-putting, in exactly the same way this swimming half-sashimied fish affected me (roll to the end of the clip).
I realize it’s anthropomorphic projection to react this way, but it’s hard not to think of how awful it would be to have somebody do that sort of thing to oneself. I’m fine with my spot on the top of the food chain, but making sport of vivisection in this way — literally making your dismembered prey dance for your amusement on the plate — seems to skirt some iffy moral territory, I have to say.
Now if you’ll excuse me, the water’s boiling, and I have some lobsters to cook.
Most of the fish I catch are returned to the water so they can continue in the struggle for life. A few I eat. Of the latter, if a fish doesn’t move when I fillet it, it’s because I’ve screwed up.