isn't shellfish gross?

[Wise Fool]

I don't get how people can stomach eating this crap. Squid and octopus and shrimp and crab and clam. These things are hideous, alien-like, with body parts that are so different from human that it's hard to comprehend as being edible.

 

Of course intellectually I grasp that taste is influenced by a lot of things and it's really just personal preference, and that of course these things are edible and safe to eat and there's nothing inherently disgusting about tentacles, jelly-like slop, insect-like foodies.

 

On the other hand I just find it so revolting that I think there must be some other traits people have when it comes to this. Like some explanation for how they are different. What, or who, and when or why did they first feast upon the horrors of the sea.

 

Maybe I'm the weird one for preferring red meats and chicken and the like. Mammals and birds. I like to know if I am eating meat from a leg or middle of the back or whatever, rather than the vague impression of feelers and segmentation, or (say with shrimp) eating the whole bloody thing. And not even bloody, like meat should be. Grayish. Pulpy. Gross. Super gross. But is anyone who eats shellfish conversely disgusted by beef or pork?

 

And lobsters. Gahh. There's something really weird going on there with boiling lobsters alive. Sure, I prefer meat that is closer to human, which is kind of cannibalistic in a way, but I don't think it should suffer just to make it tastier. Or because we as a species just can't be bothered to avoid the temptation to boil a thing to death, and of all creatures, it's mostly lobsters we've chosen to be that thing. Why lobsters? To punish them for their hideous alien-ness, the Cthulhu-like effect their impossible existence inflicts upon people? Because they are primitive enough to be roach-like, yet not so much that they can't experience suffering. Some weird, inhuman suffering.

 

What about you, do you like shrimp or anything nasty like that? Are you grossed out by relatively common foods? Not because of how they taste, but because of how they seem/look/feel?

[Lord Flashheart]

first things first. No. Second shellfish have shells so squid and octopus don't count. I love shellfish in most forms. I grew up on the ocean next to a marina. It's what we ate. Lobsters are grossly overrated to me because without being drenched in butter it's not that good.

As for boiling lobster alive I think it's because there isn't an effective way to kill a lobster without destroying it a bit in the process.

I haven't met many meat dishes I won't eat though. Pork is probably my least favorite with the exception of bacon.

Eta: I guess squid and octopus are considered shellfish..weird. Still delicious but I never considered them shellfish.

[Wise Fool]

first things first. No. Second shellfish have shells so squid and octopus don't count. I love shellfish in most forms. I grew up on the ocean next to a marina. It's what we ate. Lobsters are grossly overrated to me because without being drenched in butter it's not that good.

As for boiling lobster alive I think it's because there isn't an effective way to kill a lobster without destroying it a bit in the process.

I haven't met many meat dishes I won't eat though. Pork is probably my least favorite with the exception of bacon.

Eta: I guess squid and octopus are considered shellfish..weird. Still delicious but I never considered them shellfish.

I think people do enjoy the boiling of the lobster though. Like it kind of appeals to that primal, hunter-gatherer part of the brain in the same way murdering an animal with your own hands is kind of thrilling. 

 

I've always understood "shellfish" to mean "seafood that is not fish." Basically an umbrella term for all the gross stuff. The insanity-twisting terrors of the deep. The beady-eyed monstrosities that lurk in the nightmare realm.

[all swedes are racist]

And the angel of the lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber. And took me on high, and higher still until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself. And he brought me into a vast seabeds of New England. And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the waves. One thousand, nay a million voices full of fear. And terror possesed me then. And I begged, "Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?" And the angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the lobsters, the cries of the lobsters! You see, Reverend Wise Fool, tomorrow is surf and turf day and to them it is the holocaust." And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared, "Hear me now, I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the people eat haddock! Save our brothers!" Can I get an amen? Can I get a hallelujah? Thank you Jesus.

[Nas!]

Shit. I was going to say how much I love eating shellfish, but RRL's post has made me feel a little guilty about the whole idea.

[all swedes are racist]

Ps yeah, cephalopods are mollusks, though many have an internal shell for the most part-- in the form of a gladius or cuttlebone -- though there are still a few extant nautiloids with the familiar external shell.

Pps, if you want to cook a lobster relatively guilt-free (and man I really shouldn't be saying this), place a live lobster in the freezer for 20 minutes or so. As an ectotherm, the cold will slow the metabolism down to the point the poor doomed bastard is in a sort of hibernation, unlikely to sense much of anything. Or, take your sharpest chefs knife, place the point right on the edge of the first shell segment behind the eyes/feelers, and BAM! bifurcate the motherfuckers tiny brain.

[drawkcabi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aL9qqWRm7E

[IamMe90]

It's all delicious. I don't care what it is - mammalian, reptilian, insect, aquatic, amphibian - I'll eat it all. 

[Wise Fool]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aL9qqWRm7E

Fantastic. We need more forward-thinking people like him to help get humanity out of this shellfish funk.

[Civility Reigns]

I avoid eating octopi because they're smart little bastards, and raw cuttlefish because it's like chewing through rubber soaked in mucus. Otherwise, it's fair game. The more alien the better, even.

[The Anti-Targ]

You are supposed to pop lobsters in the freezer to kill them, that at least is humane. But it is a slow process. 

 

The thing I mostly find gross about eating bivalve molluscan shellfish (BMS in the biz) is that you're not just eating their poop shoots, you are eating their actual poop. Which is why I like scallops the best as you only eat the adducter muscle and, sometimes, the rowe (gonads). I only eat the tail and legs of lobsters, and the peeled tail of prawns. I never eat raw BMS, to me that's like playing Russian Roulette. I like cooked / marinated mussels. Can't stand oysters, raw oyster look and feel like cold snot (I gave it one try, and never again).

 

In terms of how we came to eat the beasties of the sea, I can only imagine that back in the day when agriculture wasn't a thing yet, people who lived close to the sea must have decided that if catching seabirds to eat them was a bit of a chore (and seagulls taste pretty gross I hear) it would be much easier to harvest things that can't run, swim or fly away from you, so BMS are a bloody handy food source requiring probably the least effort per calorie of any hunter-gatherer food source that isn't a plant of fungus. And of course once we got a taste for shellfish we would have started noticing bigger sea creatures and wondering if they tasted OK. And while still being hunter-gatherers we could not afford to be fussy about what we ate. So long as it didn't make us sick / die from eating it then why not develop a taste for it.

[drawkcabi]

Fantastic. We need more forward-thinking people like him to help get humanity out of this shellfish funk.

 

Well I'm from Maryland but I hate eating shelled crab. But the reason is it really is too much fucking work for too little gain. And those shells are sharp! I always end up cutting my fingers trying to pry them open, and that's just great when I got a cut on my fingers to have them coated in old bay seasoning and lemon juice. And when you do accidentally eat the nasty meat it is really, REALLY nasty. Fuck eating shelled crabs.

 

However, eating all ready shelled or mostly shelled crab meat, I'll go all Bubbagump on you.

Crab cakes, crab claw cocktail, crab imperial, crab pasta, cream of crap soup :drool:

 

I'll eat lobster but like the man says, butter is good and lobster is something to eat it with.

 

 

I have eaten clams, mussels, calamari, escargot, oysters, scallops and I can live without eating any of that again. Though anything does taste good fried.

I remember when I was like 3 years old and I ate like 20 raw oysters with ketchup. I didn't know better.

 

ETA:

I used to like eating shrimp cocktails, fried or otherwise, but then working in my parents restaurant I had to devein a lot of shrimp and it just grossed me out so bad I couldn't ever enjoy eating them again.

[Aemon Stark]

I think people do enjoy the boiling of the lobster though. Like it kind of appeals to that primal, hunter-gatherer part of the brain in the same way murdering an animal with your own hands is kind of thrilling. 

 

I'm fairly sure most hunter-gatherers did not prepare their food in stainless steel cookware over a heating element. 

 

The lobsters you buy from the grocery store, etc. are already cooled down so they are somewhat insensate of what's going on. I'm fairly sure boiling/steaming them is a lot less "primal" than slaughtering a cow or chicken. 

 

I'm not a big fan of raw oysters, but they are wonderful fried or smoked. That anyone could dislike scallops perplexes me - especially when they come appropriately wrapped in bacon! 

 

I do tend to think of crab as being too much work. Not that I have it often. But I can't say no to shrimp. 

 

Otherwise I probably like actual fish more - be it a nice panfried cod filet or a seared tuna steak.  :drool:

[Arkhangel]

Is this a trick question? Like, where you know that I know that you know that I know that shellfish is gross, but you think that if you ask the question I will begin to doubt this obvious fact and question the evolutionary vs. moral nature of disgust and come to the conclusion that possibly maybe under some lights by some signs shellfish might possibly not be totally horrifically slimily awful?

 

Because you're not getting me with that old trick.

[Gasp of Many Reeds]

And the angel of the lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber. And took me on high, and higher still until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself. And he brought me into a vast seabeds of New England. And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the waves. One thousand, nay a million voices full of fear. And terror possesed me then. And I begged, "Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?" And the angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the lobsters, the cries of the lobsters! You see, Reverend Wise Fool, tomorrow is surf and turf day and to them it is the holocaust." And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared, "Hear me now, I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the people eat haddock! Save our brothers!" Can I get an amen? Can I get a hallelujah? Thank you Jesus.

Disgustipated?

 

Nothing like a steaming bowl of moulles methinks. And calamari is the food of the Gods.

[Buckwheat]

A few days ago, I was sitting by the coast in the low water when I felt something touching my leg. I brushed against it with my hand and only when it touched me repeatedly I bothered to look at what it was. It was an actual living, wild octopus, pale as the stones under it. (I may have panicked a bit. :blushing:)

 

Later I remembered that I had eaten octopus in some kind of stew for lunch that day. It is weird - I certainly was not that shocked to see tentacles in a pot on the table as I was upon seeing them moving and attached to a living animal with seeing eyes in the sea.

 

The octopus that touched me was a smart, curious being who was probably wondering what weird creature I was and came to see and touch to determine if I was a friendly being likely to establish intelligent contact with it. And I might just have eaten its sister! When it had determined that, it could plot a vicious attack on me too, that is how smart octopus ... (what is the plural form again?) are!

 

/weird thoughts

 

So yeah ... calamari, shrimps, clams and stuff are good, I very much like them. Octopus is just a little less good because it is weird like chewing gum, but I still eat it.

 

It is weird that calamari and octopus count as "shellfish". They certainly have no shells.

[maarsen]

The plural is octopi. The best reason for eating seafood is given a chance, it will eat you. The second reason is iodine. Lack of iodine in your diet gives you a host of medical problems but this is easily solved by eating seafood. I like the taste of seafood. It reminds me of something. The sea.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Crabs and lobsters are yummy. The Mollusk is a cool album.

[butterbumps!]

On the other hand I just find it so revolting that I think there must be some other traits people have when it comes to this. Like some explanation for how they are different. What, or who, and when or why did they first feast upon the horrors of the sea.

with the exception of the octo (which I've really only eaten as sushi), eating shellfish like that just seemed really normal and even had positive associations for me.   My grandparents came to assimilate the Italian-American culture of their neighborhood, especially the food, like the 7-fish Christmas-Eve dinners and that sort of thing.   so, idk, I just see it as totally unremarkable.   I could take or leave it, though.  I've never been a big animal-eater.

 

independently though, I do find meat absolutely revolting (yea, even bacon).   

[Deedles]

Mmm. Shellfish. All kinds of delicious. I've yet to come across one that I don't like/love. I used to get paper bags of freshly boiled periwinkles when we went to the sea as a child. I used get those in favour of sweets! By choice.

Oysters are fine but not a great payoff for the work involved at home. Happy to scoff when out.

I eat crab claws and or langoustines probably twice a month. Utterly delicious.

Lobster is good, I like a chicken breast stuffed with lobster and a lobster sauce in particular if I'm using frozen. If alive and kicking, prep is minimal.

Battered calamari with chili may be cliche but it's cliche for a reason.