Sannakji or sannakji hoe is a variety of hoe

Hoe (dish)

Hoe may refer to various raw food dishes in Korean cuisine. Saengseon hoe or "Hwal-eo hoe" is thinly sliced raw fish or other raw seafood ; yukhoe is hoe made with a raw beef and seasoned with soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice wine; and gan hoe is raw beef liver with a sauce of sesame oil and...

, or raw dish, in Korean cuisine. It consists of live nakji (hangul

Hangul

Hangul,Pronounced or ; Korean: 한글 Hangeul/Han'gŭl or 조선글 Chosŏn'gŭl/Joseongeul the Korean alphabet, is the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is a separate script from Hanja, the logographic Chinese characters which are also sometimes used to write Korean...

: 낙지, a small octopus

Octopus

The octopus is a cephalopod mollusc of the order Octopoda. Octopuses have two eyes and four pairs of arms, and like other cephalopods they are bilaterally symmetric. An octopus has a hard beak, with its mouth at the center point of the arms...

) that has been cut into small pieces and served immediately, usually lightly seasoned with sesame

Sesame

Sesame is a flowering plant in the genus Sesamum. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cultivated for its edible seeds, which grow in pods....

 and sesame oil

Sesame oil

Sesame oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from sesame seeds. Besides being used as a cooking oil in South India, it is often used as a flavor enhancer in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and to a lesser extent Southeast Asian cuisine.The oil from the nutrient rich seed is popular in alternative...

. The nakji pieces are usually still squirming on the plate. It can also be served whole.

Eating

Because the suction cups on the arm pieces are still active when the dish is served, special care should be taken when eating sannakji. The active suction cups can cause swallowed pieces of arm to stick to the mouth or throat. This can also present a choking hazard for some people, particularly if they are intoxicated. One must thoroughly chew so that no piece is big enough to stick to one's throat. Some people like the feel of the pieces wriggling as swallowed, and so will not completely chew up the particles. Those who are new to eating sannakji should completely chew it up into tiny particles before swallowing.

Language difference

Vocabularies in the two Koreas differ on nakji: South Koreans call a small kind of octopus nakji, while North Koreans call a squid

Squid

Squid are cephalopods of the order Teuthida, which comprises around 300 species. Like all other cephalopods, squid have a distinct head, bilateral symmetry, a mantle, and arms. Squid, like cuttlefish, have eight arms arranged in pairs and two, usually longer, tentacles...

 nakji (nakchi in McCune-Reischauer Romanization).

Prevalence

Sannakji is served in Korean restaurants that serve sliced raw fish, but it also can be found at bars as a snack to accompany alcoholic beverages, such as soju

Soju

Soju is a distilled beverage native to Korea. Its taste is comparable to vodka, though often slightly sweeter due to sugars added in the manufacturing process, and more commonly consumed neat.Most brands of soju are made in South Korea...

.

Danger

Several incidents of choking on Sannakji have been reported. One of the latest incidents occurred in Gwangju

Gwangju

Gwangju is the sixth largest city in South Korea. It is a designated metropolitan city under the direct control of the central government's Home Minister...

.

See also

• Odori ebi
  Odori ebi
  ' is a delicacy of Sashimi. It is translated as living or dancing shrimp. The sushi contains baby shrimp still alive and able to still move its legs and antenna while being eaten. The meal is prepared quickly to keep the shrimp still alive, usually dunked into sake in order to intoxicate the...
  
  , shrimp eaten alive in Japanese cuisine
  Japanese cuisine
  Japanese cuisine has developed over the centuries as a result of many political and social changes throughout Japan. The cuisine eventually changed with the advent of the Medieval age which ushered in a shedding of elitism with the age of shogun rule...
  
  
• Drunken shrimp
  Drunken shrimp
  Drunken shrimp is a popular dish in portions of China based on fresh-water shrimp that are often eaten alive, but stunned in a strong liquor—baijiu —to make consumption easier. Different parts of China have different recipes for it...
  
  , shrimp eaten alive in Chinese cuisine
  Chinese cuisine
  Chinese cuisine is any of several styles originating in the regions of China, some of which have become highly popular in other parts of the world – from Asia to the Americas, Australia, Western Europe and Southern Africa...
  
  
• Ikizukuri
  Ikizukuri
  In Japanese cuisine, is the preparation of sashimi from a live sea animal, such as fish, shrimp, and lobster .Ikizukuri usually involves the customer selecting the animal they wish to eat from a saltwater tank. The chef, who is often a sashimi , takes the animal out of the tank, and carefully...
  
  , the preparation of sashimi from living animals

External links

• An English Teacher in Korea's Sannakji Experience 2007/07 blogspot.com