(Fish) heads

〜♪Fish heads, fish heads, rolypoly fish heads, fish heads, fish heads, eat them up, yum〜♪! ♪

I've had several interesting discussions on the topic of heads that are still attached to the creatures we eat. In Japan, the majority of people are perfectly fine with not only fish that still have their heads attached, but also, for small fish, eating said heads. If I remember correctly, it's a delicacy of sorts, or the famed "best part of the fish."

But, based on the reactions of my friends here in Japan so far, American and British alike (though granted one is a vegetarian), fish heads fall under the category of "kinda gross. Do not want." Personally, I don't really like to eat fish heads (or small fish!) but if it's still attached to the fish I don't really mind. I just pick my way around it. But I know plenty of people who feel kinda queasy and sick when they even see the fish head. I blame my immunity to this on growing up with a Chinese family; big dinners usually had some sort of whole fish (that I usually did not eat lol).

This topic actually came up because someone asked me about being served a whole pig, head included, in American culture. Other than Hawaiian luaus though, I couldn't remember a time when we had non-Asian food that had something resembling a head. I couldn't. Most of the non-Chinese food I had never had a head at all. Even fish that we caught ourselves were generally beheaded by the time that we ate them.

Oh wait! I lied! It wasn't someone asking me about being served whole pig. It was because the meal I was eating had these tiny tiny fish that looked a little like worms, and I felt the urge to explain that it wasn't the presence of a head that grossed me out (though it did a little bit) but the fact that the whole body was there to eat and stuff. And THEN we started talking about heads.

The most interesting thing that I found out though, was that the Japanese people I was talking to told me that for them, while fish heads were fine and dandy, animal heads, like cow, pig, chicken, duck, and goose, were really disgusting. I was kind of shocked by this, especially because one of the quintessential "chinese food store" symbols in Oakland was the duck or geese hanging in the window, all brown and defeathered and tasty looking. And I was asked that if, for turkey or chicken roasts, if people were ever disgusted by the fact that you could really see the body of the animal.

I asked a second Japanese person and found the same thing; fish were okay, but animals and birds were a nono. "Fish aren't animals," he explained to me. Having the heads on the animals made them seem more alive (and thus, gross). Nevermind that in Japan, some places give you freshly killed things, and images and motifs of live creatures mean that it's really really really fresh. hell, some places even give you things (albiet, seafood only) that are still alive.

Japan is weird. Not in a bad way, of course, just different. :) It really makes me wonder why this is the case though.