S annakji sucks! Literally. For those who aren’t well-versed in Korean culinary terms, sannakji roughly translates to ‘wriggly, squiggly raw squid or baby octopus that’s served still moving on the plate while the last breaths of life cling to its tentacles’. It grasps on to your tongue while your nashers bring an end to its uncomfortable writhing. But, like insects, rare rodents and deep-fried Mars Bars, for the gastronomically adventurous, it just has to be sampled to be believed – or does it?

I was beyond elated when I had the chance to try the real deal of a meal at a Hong Kong restaurant. It’s weird to look at and can be stranger still to taste. But it’s definitely one to tell your friends as they look on in awe and disgust. However, my experience failed to live up to the hype. It really did suck. I had imagined it would be like that scene from Old Boy where a live octopus mauls the protagonist’s face as he’s trying to gulp it down his throat. In reality, when the sannakji arrived before me, it was moving like a cephalopod with arthritis. You probably would’ve missed the action if you blinked. The tentacles did cling on to the plate and my chopsticks, and they also suckered themselves to the roof of my mouth for a few seconds. Overall though, it was hardly riveting and the squid didn’t taste any good either (imagine chewing through a piece of tough rubber and you’ll get the rough idea). In short, I was disappointed.

Then again, what has the world come to when you’re disappointed about the fact that your food isn’t putting up a fight and trying to eat your face off? Gastronomes in this day and age actively seek out such bizarre foods (there’s even a popular TV programme named after the extreme pursuit). I guess the thing is, if you can afford to list food and eating as an interest, as opposed to just a pure necessity, chances are that you lead a pretty cushy life where everything you eat has been checked and double-checked to be safe for consumption. After all, didn’t the Hong Kong government massacre thousands of chickens after one single hen tested positive for the H5N1 virus? Devouring weird, off-the-beaten-track and supposedly dangerous eats then becomes a little like garnering street cred in foodie circles. Fugu might kill you? Let’s try it then! It’s the same sort of mentality that makes us want to hike over any fence that has a ‘no climbing’ sign plastered on it.

There’s really no problem with that, until we start sensationalising this sort of food. I’ve scared people before by telling them that I’ve eaten crickets and roaches. But when they’re stir-fried with spicy salt, they taste no different from the average chilli crab. It’s not as frightening as it sounds. And when you think about it, how is live octopus or bugs any weirder than other stuff we put in our mouths? Take a corndog for example, which is essentially a sausage of processed, chemical/preservative-laden meat that’s battered in cornmeal then deep-fried in oil. That combination sounds more bizarre (not to mention grosser) to me than boiled pig’s brain or camel hump cooked in black bean sauce.

And let’s not even get into the weird shit that they put into a McDonald’s meal (do you really think it’s chicken in those nuggets?). At the end of the day, when it comes to food, there is no such thing as ‘normal’ or ‘bizarre’. There’s only the good, the bad and the occasionally very, very ugly.

Dorothy So