Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/07/restaurant-shamed-for-using-li.html
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I honestly don’t get how this is crueler than how shellfish are normally treated. It’s no different to keeping live lobsters in an aquarium, except the crabs have a(n excellent) chance of getting away when someone selects them for death. Unless the backlash is in reaction to what a con claw machines are, in which case fair enough.
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Agreed. As with so many other outrages involving animals, it seems like it’s only the fact that it’s a cruelty which people haven’t been desensitized to by generations of habit which is really prompting the complaint.
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I saw one of these in Tokyo years ago. The crabs were free to move around, 'cos they were the obstacle (the prize was a diving watch). Also it played a MIDI version of the Chitti Chitti Bang Bang theme, which was the true cruelty.
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Yeah, some US restaurant on the gordon Ramsay makeover show got a lobster one. Not sure the particular outrage other than its cheesy and not a tank
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For me it crosses the line between hunting for food and hunting for sport. The former I have no problems with as long as the animal is not an endangered species, the latter is needless violence.
That said, I am not a fan of boiling animals alive.
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hahahah about claw machines, yes they are an abomination no matter what they are filled with.
fair. but we don’t usually put the cruelty on display in people’s faces. that’s really what has people upset. probably a good thing to be reminded about really. we can treat animals better.
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There was a bar in Breckinridge that had one of these a few years ago. It was eventually removed after people complained.
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Went to Japan in September and these kinds of claw machines were everywhere. They had all kinds of crazy things in them (and yes live crabs were one of them, though I didn’t get a photo). I did get a photo of a claw machine with smoked meat inside.
People were dropping so much money in them. Easily 10,000 yen (~$80USD) for something worth no more than $10.
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I went to a restaurant in Macau where you picked your snake, the waiter cracked it like a whip and took it off to be cooked (served with small glass of snake blood).
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I just love that the only part of this that is any different from the way we normally handle shell fish is that the mechanism for getting the crab out of the tank is less efficient than normal; and that’s the problem.
I mean, boiling it alive, waiting for the screams to stop and the clanks as it tries desperately to get out of the scalding hot water until it can’t move any more, when it will be taken out of the pot and you rip it apart and eat it with your bare hands; all that is fine; no worries.
But how dare the claw mechanism not be efficient?
(I mean, I eat meat… but I insist that my meat be dead before they start cooking it. That you be dead before you start getting eaten (or prepared to be eaten) is one of the few kindnesses that Nature gives; and I want this to be granted to that which is my food.)
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Theres is only one way to make this cooler:
Tie a string around one of the crab’s claws, attach it to the dipping mechanism, and leave the other one free.
Then fill the machine with tiny stuffed crabs and you have lower the real crab and have it pick up a prize.
No worse than boiling lobsters alive.
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That’s why you split their heads with a butcher knife.
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I was gonna crack a joke that those crabs will die of old age. But no, there’s no water in that tank and of course they’ll be removed and boiled eventually anyway. Eat crab fine, but store it in a real and uncrowded tank and kill it quickly before cooking.
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I’m a bit baffled by the anger around this, as well.
Tank with live crabs or lobsters = totally cool, grab one with your bare hands, let’s eat those seabugs
Tank with live crabs or lobsters, plus a claw for trying to pick one up = inhumane!
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Perhaps they could have gotten away with it if they’d found some patsy to serve as an “artist” and claim that it was all an elaborate commentary on, y’know, man’s inhumanity to man or something.
Afterwards, fill the claw machine with … oh, let’s say empty condom boxes, and then sell it to a museum. Profundity!
I’m a bit baffled by the anger around this, as well.
In the same vein …
Why is this is this perfectly acceptable …
… but this is beyond the pale?!
It makes no sense!
/s
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If you REALLY have to ask, the answer is obvious as to why the second photo is just truly disgusting…
Those maki rolls clearly have fake crab in them, and where’s the ginger gari garnish?? For goodness sake!
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