Why is seafood so popular in East Asia, and why is eating live seafood mostly concentrated in East Asia as well?
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Funny thing about living on a sphere: go far enough in any direction, even East, and you’ll hit an ocean. There’s a whole coast over there, and a whole ocean ~~of oil~~ teeming with life, a decent chunk of which is edible.
When there are mouths to feed, and not a few of them, and not a ton of money flying around to spend on silly things like farming, people tend to look to the water for food. Asia has the Pacific, SE Asia has even more of the Pacific, and even the Indian Ocean. Couple that with warm water, which yields and abundance of critters for fish to eat, and you get more fish, just waiting to be caught.
So, everyone is eating seafood.
But, what if refrigeration is an expensive proposition, or just straight up doesn’t exist, or, like all of us, didn’t exist before the modern era? A caught fish spoils quickly, so getting that fish (or whichever seafood one prefers) from alive to cooked meal as quickly as possible is the easiest way to assure that it hasn’t spoiled. Ever see a lobster tank in a diner? Same thing. Better fresh than frozen.
Now, to touch a bit on the active eating of still-alive seafood: I can’t vouch for its commonality, but I know that it’s a thing at least in limited amounts, and all I can say is “that’s just how the culture evolved.” Can’t explain it any further than that.
Oh fine, they won’t let me post this without having a longer explanation. My original comment:
Oysters would like to have a word
But, to tackle your second question, there aren’t that many cultures that eat straight live seafood. I’m Korean, and yes, live octopus. Some cultures eat live eel. But it’s not that prevalent. The thing about eating things live is that you’re also eating innards which usually doesn’t taste good and/or can be harmful. Raw is a completely different story. But I can find raw seafood in most coastal cultures
General perception that fresh seafood is better and than frozen and live seafood is better and fresher than fresh seafood. (fresh seafood as in those bought in wet market)
Also, live seafood used to be really expensive and gave the image of wealth. With people moving into middle income and having more disposable income thus the need or desire to experience a higher lifestyle.
as for popularity, pork and chicken remains the most popular but limited variety whereas seafood encompass so many things. Comparison would not be fair.
Availability of ingredient is largely dependent on where you live. If you live your whole life near the sea, your diet is largely seafood. Conversely, if you live in the mountains, your diets are stuff easily procured from those areas–potatoes, lamb, beef, etc..
Cultural practices–linguistics, habits, trade, etc..– are largely based on geography.
The cuisine of an area can always be traced back what foods were most available there. Seafood is a staple in places where there was historically plenty of access to fresh seafood.
Modern methods of keeping food fresh has allowed people across the globe to change up their diets and experiment with new things and foreign recipes, but people tend to favor what they grew up eating, and continue to use recipes that have been handed down through generations.
This is why Chinese-American cuisine is not the same as you’d find in China. The menu is modified to suit American tastes. (More cheese!)
It’s why Italian-American cuisine isn’t the same as you’d find in Italy. Our Italian immigrants couldn’t find certain ingredients that were common it Italy, so they substituted with things they could find here, creating new (but similar) dishes that we’re very attached to today.
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