You can bake oysters, but that’s not typically how they’re served – classic oysters are served on the half-shell, often nestled in ice. Oysters Rockefeller, I learn from William Poundstone, was a dish the New Orleans restaurant Antoine’s came up with to “push” oysters, and it was a clever variation on the usual method. The Oysters were presented on a bed of rock salt, which looks like ice, and they were baked, rather than raw, with a green sauce already on them. It looked like the traditional serving, but it was actually a hot dish.
Disclaimer – I’ve never eatyen oysters, either. I’ve watched people eat them, and I doubt if any of the ones I saw were looking to see if the oysters were still alive, recoiling in pain from the lemon juice. They were just scarfing them down.
A friend of mine claimed he had eaten it. He’s dead now, so I can’t ask him for details.
I ate oysters Rockefeller the other day. Baked with sauce Hollandaise and spinach (I think). Quite tasty anyway. They were, of course, preceded by raw oysters.
My mother once ate a live slug (with a slice of lemon) when on vacation in Italy. She said it wiggled its way down the esophagus.
When I was stationed in Tokyo in the early 90s, I taught conversational English for a local academy. When my tour ended, my students took me out for Ikizukuri the night before I left. Delicious, and a little freaky with the fish still moving on the plate.
I also had calamari in Siracusa Sicily that had been flash fried so fast the tentacles were still moving, but that might have just been reflexes. Again, delicious, but a bit uncomfortable to have the tentacles try to wrap around your tongue.
As William Pounstone points out in his book Big Secrets, Antoine’s, where Oyster Rockefeller originated, claims to be the only source of the recipe, which is secret. Everybody else is guessing. The people who run Antoine’s have explicitly stated that there’s no spinach in the sauce (and the sauce isn’t a Hollendaise).
Mind you, other places serving what they call “Oysters Rockefeller” can make any kind of sauce they want, and many of them use spinach to duplicate the color of Antoine’s. Poundstone says that some even use ketchup in their sauce (which doesn’t make it green). Poundstone doesn’t know the recipe, either, for sure, but he did some interesting detective work to try to ferret it out, and I suspect he’s pretty close. It’s worth a read.
My father ran a fishing charter boat (6-pack) in Alaska until his death last year.
He was considerably startled the first time he took out a set of Japanese businessmen. They came aboard with a cooler of beers, but no lunch. They caught a nice Salmon, and proceeded to slice it up (still alive and just off the hook) and eat it.
He told the story for the next several years.
I read somewhere (No cite I’m afraid) that the story was told as a practical joke by British Broadsheet Foreign Correspondants in Singapore to a newbie when he asked why there was a hole in the center of the table that they were sitting at.
(It was apparently for a shade)
That said,when discussing this with friends, one of whom is a Taiwanese with a Masters degree in Social Anthropology, she did not rule it out as being impossible.
The adult cicada climbs a few feet up a tree and pops out of it’s shell. It then has to spend quite a while pumping up its wings and hardening its exoskeleton. I suspect this is when you harvest and eat them. They will be quite soft and unable to make noise. It’s kinda like eating a soft shell crab.
At least that’s my guess how to do it.
Taking a love of fresh sushi to the nth degree.
I’d like to hear more about this.
I’ve had live shrimp in Japan. It’s a little unnerving at first, but then you figure if you’re going to eat it raw anyway, it might as well be fresher than fresh!
So… if you’re a person who finds it ethically repulsive to eat something that is still living how does one politely decline such a dish if presented with such?
“But … it’s *looking *at me!”
Upon which, the host will take out a cleaver and start singing Christmas carols.
Urgh, this thread is making me want to become a vegetarian again.
“I cain’t eat this, it ain’t dead yet!”
Shoot it in the head with your trusty .45. Act surprised and bemused when the hosts become all shocked and horrified.
(I love culture clashes. Especially when bloodshed and *phagy are involved. 
)
No, guys, I mean seriously - how does one bow out of eating a dish one find ethically repulsive?
(It’s the live part that’s the problem for me - I have no trouble with raw, but still living just crosses the line for me.)
“No thank you, I’ll stick to the chicken,” same as any other food you don’t prefer.
I’ve had live mangrove worms in the Philippines. Tastes like oysters.