Eating With Kristen Schaal: Oyster Shooters, Monkey Brains, and the Tyranny of Onions

First of all if this was a joke it is not even funny! Just the thought of a poor little Primate being killed to eat his brains makes me sick and I would seriously want to hurt that person. There is enough already in this world to make God cringe at his own creations. I hope anyone who eats any brain gets Spongiform Ensephalopathies or Prion disease holes in the brain. She is an idiot for even saying it!

I concord with your content yet theres a few things I would have thrown in there .

This is the problem with centralized production. What happened to locally produced products? Petaluma used to be the chicken capital of the world, now it is just another housing track. The lesson here is DON"T PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET

What does it take to get shut down in this country? Maybe someone in the media should do a little investigative reporting, because there seems to be a bigger problem here than a few isolated incidents. Aren't these factory farms repeat offenders?

I'll let you have the last word, Benno, and I wish you well in your conservation efforts, but, as someone who has allegedly spent eight years in the field (I'm a little surprised you offer no specifics), and presumably a scientist of some sort, I would have thought you'd realize that the raw monkey brain eating was a myth and not an actual fact, and that the very real threat to the welfare of the monkeys indeed lay elsewhere...

Dear rsietsema,Browbeat no, just putting out there what should have been said had she actually consumed endangered primates as she stated (ok, I know she is a comedian, but see above). She didn't...which is great. However, loose lips sink ships.

Ummm, I do love Indiana Jones movies but dont use them as a basis of fact. Instead I use 8 years of doing primate conservation in the region.

Not getting self-righteous on you nor everyone else who 'us' represents, unless you like eating monkeys. Otherwise, continue sipping martinis and discussing the best dining locales in your area and submitting reviews on your iPhone.

Let me get this straight. You, Benno, and Rowena H browbeat a beloved comedian, claiming that her facetious remarks endanger monkeys, and alluding to culinary practices that you believe exist based on an Indian Jones movie, but which you have not the slightest shred of proof about, and then you get all self-righteous on us?

Hi Robert, Not sure what you are getting at here. Of course I am fully aware of the relative seriousness of the various threats that face primates, especially in Indochina, and tourists eating monkey brains is not high on the list. However, I am neither trying to 'whip up sympathy' (as I imagine that most of your readers do not often engage in consumption of primates...just a guess), nor promote this as a 'poster-boy' for primate conservation.

What I am doing is saying, "Eating monkey brains is probably a bad idea, for both primates and yourself." Pretty hard to deny that I would reckon mate. Just because tourist consumption of endangered species is not the main driver for crashing populations of primates doesn't make it ok and something that should be ignored.

And I admit I am prejudiced in my culinary habitats. I eat stuff that I think (a)tastes good and (b) doesn't have too much impact on the environment. Dreadful I know.

Thanks, Benno, I too am totally in favor of preserving monkeys and other endangered species, in fact, if you scan this blog you will see we are obsessed with sustainability of seafood supplies. It does a disservice to your cause, however, to whip up sympathy based on rumored exploitation by vampirish raw-monkey-brain eaters. The threat is certainly real, but more from traders in so-called aphrodisiacs and even indigenous populations, who hunt endangered species to survive. A dying monkey with an exposed brain being eaten by European thrill-seekers is a bad poster boy for your cause!

And btw, your own prejudices are showing when you turn your nose up at fermented fish and intestines!

has no one here seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? shit is real.

Thanks for the calrification Kristen. Glad you didn't eat monkey. we get upset at such things over here because we spend so much of our lives fighting against these issues. Consumption of wildlife is driving extinctions of some of our most charasmatic and wonderful species. Very sad...

Hi Robert and Rowena H - seems like the existence of the phenomenon is controversial. I have certainly heard of reports, as Rowena H says, in Northern Vietnam/Southern China but have never seen documentation. Robert, you seem pretty adament it doesn't occur...why is that? In terms of disease risk, especially in terms of macaques which are the likely subject, it is indeed high. Still, that doesn't stop people eating primates with higher risk of disease transmission (most notably chimps and gorillas...just think of ebola), so not a sufficient argument to discard it. As for it being unappetising...living in Asia there are plenty of things I find unappatising that I see people eat on a regular basis e.g. fermented fish, intestines and yes...monkeys, so again, not sufficient. Rowena H, do you know of any documented evidence of the practice from your work in Vietnam?

Sorry for hijacking this post...feel free to go back to discussing martinis.

Thanks for your response, Rowena H, but your assurance that the practice still takes place isn't enough evidence for me. The potential for disease transmission is very real, not to mention how unappetizing eating monkey brains raw and in the skull would be. They would be also inundated with sticky blood. If you told me endangered monkeys were being killed for their brains in order to cook them, I might believe you.

Thanks for the response Kristen and glad to hear you didn't actually eat monkey. Not sure if I quite see the funny side of such a comment but each to their own I suppose.

@Robert - I can tell you that as unappetising and disease-ridden as this sounds the practice is very real, and continues to take place (at least in China and Vietnam).

Hopefully this discussion just highlights how inhumane the practice is and the impacts it has on many already threatened species.

You are perfection itself and gift to us all.

(somehow you also remind me of Fanny Brice.)

I predict this unattractive person will choke to death on a piece of gristle.

I didn't believe it for a minute! No one has eaten warm raw monkey brains--it's about the most unappetizing thing anyone could imagine. Can you imagine the prion-borne diseases you'd be prey to, or just plain diseases from the uncooked brain? Funny how people fall for it and get up on their high horses. Monkey brains are legendary, but have never run across an actual account that I believed in!

Hey it's Kristen Schaal here. I didn't eat a monkey. I was worried for a second that someone might believe it, and I'd have fake monkey blood on my hands. But then I didn't think it was possible to imagine me doing something so extreme and grotesque. I was wrong. I love monkeys. I applaud your monkey work.

I dont own a car and never have New Zealander! I also work in Primate Conservation, so a bit hard to get over it. Still, thanks for the well constructed and thought out response.

Oh my gosh, just get over it. Especially considering your car is doing more damage to animals than Kristen 'eating' of monkey brains.

Kirsten, you're a great stalker! Keep up the good work.

Well would be interesting to hear from the horse's mouth. It happens, so either she has done her homework on some obscure culinary cultural practice of Vietnam to make one pretty lame joke which is counter-productive to ongoing conservation efforts of endangered species or...put another baby on the fire.

wow, did you maybe consider that she's joking? she's a comedienne.

Yeah sorry Kristen, love your work but really you and anyone with half a brain (that hasn't been eaten by a dumbarse tourist) should know better. Vietnam is ranked as the the second highest priority for primate conservation in the world. Of 24 species, 22 are threatened with extinction according to the IUCN Red List of threatened species. Next time just stick your fork into a starving orphan and call it a culinary experience.

Just a word of advice, if you don't want people to know that you've eaten monkey brains perhaps you shouldn't publicise it through a blog. I expect I'll be ridiculed for being a tree hugger but as someone who's worked in conservation in Vietnam there's nothing 'awesome' about this and I think you really should be 'ashamed'. To have an animal slowly die in front of me while I ate its brain would horrify and disgust me. I suppose the fact that many of Vietnam's primates are endangered didn't feature into the equation either.

Mel, you are awesome