Live octopus is a delicacy in Korea, but why?

Food & Travel

Published: 27 Nov. 2023, 15:14

Live octopus is a delicacy in Korea, but why?

Sannakji, otherwise known as live octopus, is a traditional dish in Korea. [JOONGANG PHOTOS]

Last month, an 82-year-old man had a heart attack after choking on the tentacle of a live octopus, otherwise known as sannakji.

Fire station authorities arrived within 10 minutes of receiving the emergency phone call and the man was rushed to a nearby hospital in Gwangju, but he was declared dead soon afterward.

Nakji is a species of small octopus, known as long arm octopus or octopus minor, found along Korea’s southern coasts. There are many ways to cook it, but one traditional way of consuming it in Korea is to eat it live.

This isn’t the first time that the squirming octopus legs have made their way into deadly headlines.

Almost every year, there are similar reports of somebody choking or asphyxiating after eating sannakji. In 2012, there was even a case of a Korean man who was charged and then acquitted for allegedly killing his girlfriend and then masking the murder as if she died from eating sannakji.

Some foreign outlets have dubbed the dish one of the world’s most dangerous foods.

Nakji, otherwise known as long arm octopus, are shown inside a water tank. [JOONGANG PHOTOS]

Among locals, however, there is less fuss. The dish isn’t necessarily seen as life-threatening, but many who do enjoy it view it as more of a healthy and delicious dish eaten on special occasions.

There are approximately 350 sannakji eateries in Seoul alone, according to the local big data restaurant search engine Dining Code.

“I enjoy sannakji from time to time, either with friends or family,” said Lee Ye-ji, 26, from Dobong District, northern Seoul. “I’ve never thought of it as a dangerous food.”

“I don’t eat sannakji, but that isn’t because I think I might die from it,” Kim Do-youn, 43, from Gangnam District, southern Seoul, said. “I just find it a little bit freaky!”

How to eat sannakji, safely

Nearly all of the death or near-death situations involving sannakji happened when the octopus was eaten either whole or in large pieces.

Though uncommon even in Korea, one way that some locals eat sannakji is by wrapping a whole octopus around wooden chopsticks. Another way is to knock out the nakji and serve its limbs without chopping them up. Upon dipping it into a salty sauce, the tentacles start to squirm again.

“What usually happens is that the suckers on the sannakiji’s tentacles stick onto the throat or airway,” Prof. Lee Ji-hyun of Aju University Hospital’s nutrition department said. “So it’s important to chew thoroughly before swallowing sannakji. It is also recommended that the dish be eaten in small pieces instead of whole.”

Director Park Chan-wook's movie "Oldboy" (2003) showcases actor Choi Min-sik eating a whole sannakji. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

The safest way to consume sannakji — and the most common way it is eaten in Korea — is by chopping up the tentacles into tiny, 1 to 3-centimeter (0.4 to 1.6-inch) pieces. Called tangtangi, the wriggling bits of octopus are seasoned with sesame oil and salt and topped with Korean pear slices, scallions, peppers, sesame seeds and an egg yolk to taste.

The dish’s name is an onomatopoeia of the “tang” sound of blades hitting the cutting board as the cook strikes the tentacles with a knife in each hand.

A cook prepares nakji tangtangi, which is seasoned pieces of small, moving nakji tentacles. [JOONGANG PHOTOS]

Of the different types of nakji, saebal nakji is the kind that is usually served raw.

They are baby octopuses, about two to three months old, that are born in spring. Their body length is around 20 centimeters and their head circumference is 2 to 3 centimeters. Some 80 percent of the saebal nakji in the local market are caught along the shores of South and North Jeolla. Saebal nakji often reside between rocks in shallow seawater or in mud flats.

Why do Koreans eat it?

Nakji, especially those that are live, are perceived as superfoods — so powerful that they can even get a sick cow back on its feet, according to a common Korean saying.

It's only an expression today, but in the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), people actually did feed nakji to cows suffering from the summer heat or that had just given birth, as recorded in the “Jasaneobo” or “The Book of Fish” records, written by Joseon scholar Jeong Yak-jeon (1758-1816).

“Feeding three or four nakji to these cows can quickly make them better,” the book states.

Nakji is often kept alive until ready to be cooked. [JOONGANG PHOTOS]

Nakji is indeed high in protein and other nutrients like taurine, DHA, EPA, iron and calcium. But the fact that they are alive doesn’t necessarily make them any healthier.

“The nutritional value is largely the same between a cooked nakji and a live nakji,” Kim said, “but people perceive it as being better for them because they are alive and fresh.”

Local delicacy or animal cruelty?

Sannakji has long been seen as a traditional local delicacy and one of the must-try foods in Korea for adventurous foreigners.

Food-avid celebrities visiting Korea including Sam Smith and Gordon Ramsay have all been seen putting a squirming piece of octopus tentacle into their mouths.

But there is a growing condemnation of eating sannakji because it is seen as an act of animal abuse.

The issue was brought under the spotlight in 2017 when the American nonprofit organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, put up large billboards around Koreatown in Los Angeles that showcased a picture of an octopus in the ocean with the phrase “I’m ME, Not MEAT.”

“The octopus, which you’ve been chopping to pieces, is feeling pain every time you do it, “ cephalopod expert Jennifer Mather told PETA in its post against sannakji in 2018. “It’s just as painful as if it were a hog, a fish, or a rabbit if you chopped a rabbit’s leg off piece by piece.”

American nonprofit organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, in 2017 put up large billboards around Koreatown in Los Angeles that showed a picture of an octopus in the ocean with the phrase “I’m ME, Not MEAT.” [SCREEN CAPTURE/PETA]

Korea’s Animal Protection Act currently only applies to “vertebrates with a developed nervous system” because of the notion that these are the only animals capable of feeling pain. Recent studies, however, support that cephalopods and crustaceans like octopus, squid, lobsters and shrimp can feel pain as well.

It is currently illegal to put live and conscious lobsters into boiling water in New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland. Italy’s supreme court in 2017 ruled that restaurant kitchens must not keep live lobsters on ice because it causes “unjustifiable suffering.”

Koreans are also starting to see the brutal aspects of sannakji.

Four out of 10 Koreans answered that it is disturbing and inappropriate to air people eating sannakji on television, in a 2020 survey by local animal rights group Korea Animal Rights Advocates (KARA).

“All animals are sentient beings, not objects, and have the right to be respected as living beings, and in particular, media such as broadcasting and YouTube must not harm people by considering them as live food ingredients or props, or intentionally threaten their lives for the sake of unnecessarily provocative videos,” KARA told the Korea JoongAng Daily.

In the same year, the Green Party in Korea pledged that it would regulate cooking alive and conscious animals, ahead of the legislative election where it had five candidates in the running.

“Having regulations on cooking live animals is not an absurd or unusual policy,” the Green Party said. “It is already an established academic opinion and a scientifically proven fact that cephalopods such as squid and octopus, and crustaceans such as shrimp, crabs and lobsters also feel pain.”

“Laws must also evolve in accordance with rapidly changing societal and citizen perceptions,” KARA said. “Korea will need to make continuous efforts to reorganize animal protection laws so that more animals can be recognized as sentient beings and enjoy their natural rights.”

BY LEE JIAN [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]