The mysterious case of Japan's ‘dancing zombie squid’.

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Katsu ika odori-don came to global attention in 2010 thanks to a YouTube video that went viral. But how did this unique phenomenon come about?


▼ Katsuikaodori-donisn’t for the faint of heart.
Loosely translated as ‘dancing squid bowl’, the controversial Japanese dish came to global attention in 2010 thanks to a YouTube videothat went viral. The video depicts a headless squid perched on top of a bowl of noodles and roe. A mysterious hand appears with a teapot and pours what appears to be soy sauce onto the squid. The tentacles begin writhing wildly, granting the dish the unofficial title of ‘dancing zombie squid’.
As strange as the dish might seem, this is a contemporary take on a method of consumption in which seafood is eaten while still moving, referred to asodorigui(literally ‘ dancing eating’), in Japan.
Although the squid in this case is dead, its nerve cells are activated by the sodium in the soy sauce, which triggers the cells and commands them to fire, forcing the muscles to contract. And while odorigui can be found across Japan, the origin of this unique phenomenon is a little more mysterious.
The elusive practice of odorigui – which most often involves eating tiny, live fish – likely stems from fishing practices in port cities, with regional iterations on the practice. “In Shizuoka, a prefecture on central Honshu’s Pacific coast, it’s whitebait orshirasuthat’s the preferred moving meal,” said Dave Lowry, a Japanese-restaurant critic and author of The Connoisseur's Guide to Sushi. “In Fukuoka, odorigui is almost synonymous with theshiro-uo, or ice goby, a tiny, eel-like fish that goes from the ocean to freshwater to spawn,” he added, explaining that the shiro-uo live in abundance around Fukuoka and are eaten alive because they start to deteriorate as soon as they die.
“If you were to ask most Japanese where they associate most with odorigui, they'd answer ‘Fukuoka’,” said John Ashburne, editor-in-chief of the blog Foodies Go Local.
Odorigui is just one piece of the bigger live pie of Japanese cuisine
Head to this port city on the northern shore of Kyushu and you’ll find a nondescript white building marked ‘Koharu’ (‘Small Spring’), a shiro-uo restaurant that is dismantled after each shiro-uo season, which runs from mid-February to the start of April. Outside is one of the few historical references to odorigui that’s the most commonly cited origin story of the practice. Here, a large display tells the so-called legend of the dish, a tale of thedaimyos(feudal lords) that ruled over Japan in the Edo period 300 years ago.
“The story is that after a particularly bad flood [in Fukuoka] the local lord ordered the people to clean up – and provided a barrel of sake as a reward. The workers noticed the shiro-uo caught in what remained of the flood waters, and, sake needing something to go with it, they popped the fishes in and drank up,” Lowry said.
Eating the tiny fish is an experience in and of itself. A large bowl arrives at the table, with many tiny fish wriggling in place, along with a raw quail egg and a bottle of vinegar. The egg and vinegar are mixed into a separate bowl, and a ladle is used to scoop the fish into the bowl with the vinegar mixture. Finally, chopsticks are used to catch the fish and eat them.
While eating live shiro-uo may well have been a precursor to the dancing squid, this still doesn’t explain how the phenomenon evolved from eating tiny fish to using larger cephalopods.
It’s likely that odorigui is a modern offshoot of a more traditional practice,ikizukuri, according to Lowry.
“Odorigui is just one piece of the bigger live pie of Japanese cuisine,” he said. “We usually think of this as ikizukuri, or ‘live style’.”
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soothsayer

Yikes! gives the feel that it is still around

mazherali

Agree with Soothsayer. Difficult to imagine eating something while its still alive. But then our eating practices might seem strange to them.