Swimming Bones

Over dinner last night we were talking about the study that showed that crabs and lobsters feel pain. The conversation turned to a practice in Japan whereby the sashimi chef, as a display of his knife skills, prepares sashimi from a live fish and then slips the fish, which is now just a head and bones, back into the tank where it proceeds to swim for awhile.

I'd never heard of such a thing and had to see it for myself so of course off to Google I went.

The practice is called oyogu hone (swimming bones). There is another technique called ikizukuri in Japan (it's also done in other parts of Asia) whereby the filleted or fried fish is served on a plate still alive. I completely respect a chefs skills but this is unnecessarily cruel.