This made me jump the first time I saw it: sushi that's so fresh it's still alive!
This type of food is called Ikezukuri, or the preparation of sashimi (raw seafood) from a living animal. Wikipedia explains:
Ikizukuri usually begins with the customer selecting, from a tank in the restaurant, the animal (shrimp, octopus, lobster, assorted fish) they wish to eat. The chef, almost always a sashimi chef who has undergone years of training and apprenticeship, takes the animal out of the tank and filets and guts it, but without killing the animal, which is served on a plate, sliced, with the heart still beating.
Needless to say, this food preparation method is controversial. Many people consider ikezukuri as inhumane and needlessly cruel, whereas aficionados claim that the flavor, quality, and freshness justified the procedure.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube], warning: disturbing images - via Random Good Stuff
That kid is going to bury someone in a desert someday and be comforted by the memory of that breathing fish head.
I think I'd try it... if I could.
I'm not so sure I'd be able to stomach it, but I sure as hell would try.
As for the ethical issues being debated -- my opinion is that it's really just part of the cycle of life. We eat food. Those fish ate living things before they were... ehm... "killed" and fed to us. I will agree that it is slightly barbaric, but not everyone will rip the throat out of a chicken just because they're dying of hunger -- some just like the rush of the kill.
And that, I think is why we do this. Because there is nothing like going back to the way things once were and eating as though not everything has to be perfect to all standards.
I'm sort of beside the point, but, I guess my point is that it's just a different way of eating.
Some people look down on others for killing an animal with their bare hands.
Some people just like the taste of blood.
(for the record, I AM a vegetarian)