Horror Food

Here I am not talking about Frankenstein food or to use the politically correct term GM food.

What I am talking about are food that prior to coming to our table are obtained or cooked in the most horrific way - not to us human who eat but to the poor creatures who sacrifice their lives for us greedy gluttons. Of course most of us have heard about the monkey's brain, bear claw and other more exotic food but that is something we don't get to eat here or even in China too! So I will restrict the food to those available here in Singapore.

Top on the list is Foie Gras. This is essentially duck liver but unlike normal duck and chicken liver, in this case, the poor duck is forced fed with food on a daily basis until the liver is swollen. Special long metal feeders are inserted in the duck's throat several times a day and pressure pumps on the other end of the feeder push the food into the duck. This process continues for several weeks. When the liver is big enough (more than 10 times its normal healthy size), the bird is killed and the liver is taken out!

Closer to home, we have turtle meat. In the old days or so I understand, the turtle will be made to bite a chopstick and because it is said that a turtle that bites does not let go, the hawker simple chop off the head because it cannot go back into its shell. That I submit is acceptable. One chop and it is dead. But nowadays.. they just use this gadget and rip off the shell to get to the turtle. Can you imagine somebody stripping off our skin with a single pulll! Ouch!

Then there is the popular drunken prawn. The prawns are dropped into a small pot of soup and literally boiled to death. You can see the prawn frantically swimming as the water become hotter and hotter and then what - we take it out and deshelled it before popping it into our mouth!

Next is the snakehead or toman fish that is widely available in Chinatown market. A popular fish for making soup and porridge. But have any one seen how the fish are slaughter? Because this fish are very fierce, slippery and fast, the handler simply catch one up from the container, slam it hard on the floor and because it doesn't die so easily, the poor fish is clubbed over and over again until it stop moving! Never seen this done before? Just go to the Chinatown market and observed.

I did read about a certain method of cooking live carp but is that a myth? Anybody care to enlighten? Anyway, what else did I miss? Shark? Dog? Frog?

We human can be so cruel. While I have no qualm about eating any food, I baulked at eating food that has been tortured in order that I can enjoyed. So I have resolve not to eat any food that is 'horror food' to me. Hopefully, these are all the cruel foods that is available here otherwise I will have to turn vegetarian and I really can't imagine life without steak or chicken or pork knuckle!