In today's article we are going to talk about a dish in Japan that raised quite a stir on social media. Katsu Ika Odori-don (活いか踊り丼) is a dish consisting of rice, vegetables, fish roe and other side dishes where you can find dancing squid.
This dish was created in a town called Hakodate in Hokkaido Prefecture at a restaurant called Ikkatei Tabiji. The dish costs around 2,000 yen which is equivalent to 60 reais.
This generated a lot of discussions about the squid being alive, that this is macabre, and yet they think that the Japanese eat squid that way. Unfortunately this is a lack of information and culture, so today we are going to talk about some points about this dish to solve all your doubts. Below I will leave the video of the controversy:
Índice de Conteúdo
Is the squid alive?
No, the squid is not alive, it had its head cut off before going to the plate, causing instant brain death. She moves because of the Shoyo being thrown at her. When the sodium in the soy sauce makes contact with the still-active muscles, they begin to twitch and twitch like something macabre and terrifying, like a zombie.
The same thing happens with frog legs, sprinkle salt on cut frog legs and they will move. In fact any organism that has recently been killed can respond to stimuli. Even more so the squid muscles contain adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the main source of energy for muscle contractions.
Do they eat like that?
In reality they don't eat the whole squid, this is just a dance, the name of the dish has the word 踊り(odori) which means dance. After the little Show she is sent back into the hands of the cook and he finishes preparing the dish. Even though this squid dish is just a show and she's dead, it's still a macabre thing to see.
In the video below she is being prepared for a traditional dish without the dancing. See how she dances after having her head cut off:
People confuse a lot, Japan is not used to eating living things. In Japan you don't eat insects, dogs or anything else you think is disgusting, the worst thing is fish and seafood. Of course, in Japan as in any country you will find a restaurant like this, but it is not part of Japanese cuisine.
A terrible craze is to criticize the cuisine of a country because of a dish. You complain that in China they eat dogs, but in Brazil they eat rabbits, which I find much cuter. Every country has some dish considered macabre, Japan's is not a dog or insects. Just because there is a strange dish doesn't mean that everyone eats it. Some dishes, less than 1% of the country's population had the courage to face.
But Japan has not escaped the macabre dishes, there is a so-called Live Squid Sashimi which means Dance of Ice Fish. Where several transparent fish are placed in a bowl with ovo cru, they can dance in the bowl and are eaten alive and dance in your mouth.
There are some other recipes for live dishes like:
- Ikizukuri - Live Sashimi;
- Odori ebi - Shrimp eaten alive;
- Sannakji - Octopus eaten alive (Korean);
