"Beauteen" wrote in message ...
TO most people, raw fish is mainly associated with Japanese sashimi. Less
widely known is the tradition of using raw fish in Chinese cuisine in the
traditional Spring Festival dish called Feng Sheng Shui Qi, generally
believed to be the forerunner of sashimi.
Legend has it that over 2,000 years ago in a seaside village in Guangdong,
there lived two poor orphan brothers. One Spring Festival, the brothers went
fishing but got only two fish for the whole day. They took the two fish to
the market to sell them, but since everybody was home eating a wonderful
festival meal, they could not manage to sell it.

The brothers were so poor that they had no firewood at home. So they just
sliced the fish and ate it raw. This was their Spring Festival meal.

From then on, they were always able to harvest full nets of great amounts of
fish. They became rich, got married and lived a happy life. But one thing
remained: they would eat raw fish at Spring Festival.

The Chinese for raw fish is sheng yu, which also sounds like another word
which means wealth or prosperity.

Over time, a name for the raw fish dish was coined - Feng Sheng Shui Qi,
meaning "wind grows and waves surge," implying a perfect time to harvest
fish. The dish spread to many parts of the country and became very popular
in the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

However, the dish disappeared from most dinner tables in the 1950s and
1960s, due to health concerns related to the consumption of the raw river
fish used to prepare the dish.

Yet in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, the Feng Sheng Shui Qi has made a
comeback to Spring Festival tables, largely due to the current availability
of high-quality Norwegian salmon, which renders the consumption of raw fish
carefree.

Norwegian salmon's excellent red colour, and the ideal environment in which
it is raised - the pristine waters of Norway's cold seas and strict
government hygienic monitoring - combine to make it a top, healthy choice
for the traditional Chinese New Year dish.

One of the highlights of eating Feng Sheng Shui Qi is the tossing ritual.
The action is believed to bring good luck - those who toss the raw fish
highest will have best fortune in the coming year.

The dish has now arrived in Shanghai. I had the honour and pleasure of
tossing the Norwegian raw fish slices with Torill Oftedal Sjaastad, the
Norwegian Consul General in Shanghai.

"To taste the wonderful Chinese Spring Festival dish Feng Sheng Shui Qi
prepared with Norwegian salmon is a happy encounter in which ancient meets
modern, east meets west," said Sjaastad.

I saw on some TV show I think Koreans eating live baby octopus and
Chinese quick fried fish which was still breathing. Also some people
eating live shrimp. Is there a taste difference between live food vs
raw food?