I went for acupuncture once. I didn’t like it; the room was cold and I just wanted to put on a sweater but, since my back was peppered with needles, I had to lie there and shiver. I suppose it would be different if I were a cold-blooded fish… which brings me to today’s topic: Fish acupuncture or, as it’s called in Japanese, kaimin katsugyo, is an acupuncture-style technique that helps sushi chefs serve the freshest fish possible even if their kitchen is located as far inland as Montreal or Chicago.
Here’s how it works. Needles are inserted into live fish to render them paralyzed and senseless. Sarah Staples explains the process in a recent Globe and Mail article:
“An acupunctured fish first falls into a sort of coma: It is brain-dead but can breathe weakly, and its central nervous functions continue during most of the overnight flight to Canada.
The fish dies in transit after about 12 hours, as oxygen reserves supplied by a saltwater-soaked padded envelope are depleted. But for several hours more, its flesh behaves as if it were still alive, the company says. In essence, the fish has become a zombie, existing in a twilight state between life and death, its normal processes of cellular decomposition arrested by those strategic pinpricks.”
If I’d read this story on April 1st or in a less reputable publication, I’d think I was being put on. I guess I grew up hearing too many horror stories about nasty people putting needles into Halloween candy, cause it just seems weird to me to put needles into food. What do you think? Is this freshness innovation weird and unnecessary or wonderfully clever?
Charmian @Christie's Corner wrote:March 11, 2010 @ 11:23 am
We do worse things to our food to preserve freshness, so as far as natural methods go, acupuncture is a step up from chemicals. However, should we be flying fish overnight to Canada? Goes against the eat local initiative.
If local fishermen begin to do it, then I guess that’s good. But if it’s just an excuse to export fish half way around the world, then I do have an issue beyond whether or not it’s okay to stick needles into fish.
Dana McCauley wrote:March 11, 2010 @ 11:31 am
Well said!
Anne @the_annecdotes wrote:March 11, 2010 @ 11:38 am
Wow. I don’t eat fish, but I suppose if I did I’d want it to be as fresh as possible but somehow the idea of zombie fish really freaks me out. That said, Charmian’s got the right idea. Wonder if we’ll see zombie fish popping up at markets in the coming months?
Chris wrote:March 11, 2010 @ 11:56 am
This is putting me off fish altogether…. how many more disgusting things can people do to other living things… and I really dislike seeing those tanks of lobsters and fish starving to death at the grocery stores :-/ makes me never buy them… OK if we’re going to eat fish or shellfish, then we should transport them humanely, treat them humanely until they are quickly put out of their misery and cooked.
Dana McCauley wrote:March 11, 2010 @ 12:08 pm
Chris, I get what you’re saying – this technique seems so creepy. Yet, the people who do it say it is ‘humane’ in that the fish is brain dead ad not suffering in any conscious way.
Like my cousin Joan commented on this post on facebook a few minutes ago: why not just catch and prepare local fish? Hopefully info like this being spread around will urge people to ponder that question more seriously.
Cheryl wrote:March 11, 2010 @ 3:09 pm
I actually think this is really interesting and have never heard of it before. I’m sharing the link with a friend who writes about seafood!
Barb wrote:March 11, 2010 @ 4:10 pm
I don’t like the idea of it at all. We don’t need to import fish from anywhere really and letting something run out of air in 12 hours seems a slow and cruel death – concious or not.