Holy crap that’s weird! That’s really cool though, too. Makes me want to start a huge crab farm for myself. 
At a Chiu Chow banquet in China we were served a large crab in a flat wide pot with curled sides. They were curled to prevent the crab from escaping, because it was alive. The waiter took a chopper and cut around the crab’s shell, removed the top of the carapace, and then while it continued to scuttle around, my fellow diners dived in and plucked bits of the crab’s muscle from its living body. I was very disturbed by the whole thing, but I did have some, and it was tasty.
None of this compares to my friend’s story about the monkey in an illegal Beijing restaurant, but a) I don’t want to write what he told me, and b) I’m not sure I wholly believe him; or at least I don’t want to.
I was served this - all I thought I was going to get was lobster, with butter like normal :eek:
I asked them to take it back and cook it for me.
When I was in Japan, I was served some kind of tiny, nearly transparent (save for the eyes, which cannot logically be transparent) fish that are swallowed whole. There was no noticeable taste and I didn’t see the point.
People are eaten live–by tigers.
The college craze of 1939: goldfish.
Casu marzu - Sardinian maggot cheese
I trust that this is not too pedantic by SDMB standards, but pretty much any creature is normally eaten while still alive. Not necessarily by humans, though.
Yeast, in some conditioned beers (pretty much dead in bread and most beer, though); mold in cheese; bacteria in yogurt and cheese. [And probably some other cultured products]
Edit. Bah! Ninjaed by Maastricht in #2.
I can’t check youtube right now, but in another topic, there was a video of a sushi chef who sliced off chunks of a fish then threw it back in a tank. You’d see this poor fish swimming around with a big hole where the flesh was. It was horrifying
Thanks for all the responses. My ignorance has certainly been fought - and in many cases, I wish it hadn’t been. Some of these practices are barbaric and horrific.
It’s not alive at the time of consumption, but the taboo/illegal preparation and eating of the ortolan, a tiny bird and a French delicacy, makes for an interesting story: Francois Mitterrand's Last Meal : NPR
I don’t know about that. It is certainly true for some creatures. However, many animals have a distinct “kill the prey” phase that happens separately from the “eat the prey” phase.
Even something like the tiger mentioned by another poster makes sure the prey item is good and dead before eating. The bites used to kill you are a different type than the ones used to eat you - as evidenced by other large cats that suffocate their prey without even breaking the victim’s skin. Some large cats will even drag the carcass around or into a tree before starting to eat.
My boa (a constrictor) will not try to eat a mouse or rat with any kind of life left in it.
The bulls (er … steers) are still alive while we’re eating their Rocky Mountain Oysters.
This post makes me sad.
While in Chinatown in New York, the couple seated at a table next to us were served a platter that had a fish on it which had been scaled from the gills back, then the ‘body’ part of the fish was cooked by pouring some kind of broth over it.
The gills were still moving while they used forks to pick the flesh off.
Yeah, it weirded me out, too.
I’ve heard about an old time (Middle ages? Renaissance?) practice of eating turkey alive. Apparently it was plucked, made to drink a gallon of water to keep it cool on the inside, and covered in butter and spices and put into the center of a circular fire. As the bird tries in vain to escape the flames, its flesh gets seared and diners cut pieces of cooked turkey meat off of the still-living and increasingly panicked animal.
A quick google didn’t turn up a cite. I think I might have read it in an annotated Shakespeare anthology or something.
If you want to see live lobster sashimi being prepared & served look here. It’s from the restaurant Jewel Bako in the East Village, Manhattan. I’ve also seen this dish served at another Manhattan place called Sushi Samba 7, where they also offer flash-fried river crabs that are seconds dead when served. Both of these places are considered fairly high-end.
Mangrove worms.
I remember seeing a video, possibly Japanese, where a fish was plucked from an aquarium and a filet was cut from one or both its sides without cutting into the organs. The fish was returned to the water and some dude ate the fish while he watched it swim in the tank.