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Singapore, June 20, 2011 - IMAGINE eating sushi off a naked woman. It doesn't happen just in the movies - or in other countries. Yes, such a dinner took place in Singapore last month. Nyotaimori is the Japanese practice of serving sashimi or sushi on the body of a woman, typically naked. In a recent episode of US MasterChef, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay got to experience it when one contestant served Ramsay and the other judges sushi on his wife's naked body. In Singapore, the dinner took place at a private home in Holland Village. Six professionals who did not know each other attended it. One of them was scientist and designer Romie Littrell from DIYbio.org, who also helped to prepare the sushi with host chef Florian Cornu, who's from France. A topless Asian woman, wearing just a pair of shorts, lay on the dinner table for three hours while the dinner was served. And were the breasts of the model ever exposed during the dinner? Dr Denisa Kera, who co-founded the Secret Cooks Club that hosted the dinner, said: "No indecent exposure occurred because the purpose was not to see a naked body, but to experience a Japanese food ritual and understand it. "(There were) various courses and special cleaning rituals were performed (on the woman) in between the different courses." Dr Kera, 36, an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore, co-founded the Secret Cooks Club with Mr Cornu, 26, earlier this year. The pair had met at Singapore's underground Hackerspace Club. Describing themselves as people who are passionate about design, technology and food, Dr Kera, who is from Prague, said in an e-mail interview that they were just trying to have fun with some new and challenging ideas. Mr Cornu, founder of StockFizz.com, added: "We (referring to himself and Associate Professor Littrell) served and explained the dinner to the guests. "We participated in conversations which is one of the things we and the guests like about Secret Cooks dinners - that our guests meet new and interesting people. "There is more interaction than in a restaurant." Dr Kera said the group of foodies got the idea from the movie I Served The King Of England. One of its scenes showed old, rich men dining and gazing at a half-naked woman lying on a revolving platform on the dinner table. Dr Kera felt that it was probably the most beautiful scene in the 2006 Czech film. Quite provocative She said: "It was quite provocative. What caught our attention was the various rituals around food and how people experiment with food and technology." Hence, Mr Cornu decided to host a Nyotaimori dinner last month. Like all other dinners hosted by the Secret Cooks Club, there were only a few selected guests. The guests were informed of the location of the dinner only a day before it took place. Though Dr Kera missed the dinner as she was away for work, she received feedback from the guests she had invited. She said: "I know some of the guests were worried at the start but the feedback I received was very positive." One of the two female guests told Dr Kera that she found the dinner setting, which was decorated with candles, very romantic and elegant. Dr Kera described the secret dinners as networking events that are usually attended by food enthusiasts, scholars, designers and entrepreneurs. At the end of the dinners, guests usually donate a token sum to cover the cost of the food. She said that guests who turned up for the Nyotaimori dinner had read about its tradition and knew that the dinner was not about the naked women, but a different dining and cultural experience. "I think people were curious to understand why the Japanese invented this form of eating. "When done in style and with an open mind, transgressions are ways of understanding our own limits and eating habits, rather than doing something forbidden," said Dr Kera, who described the experience as a meditation on food rather than just eating from a naked body. When told of the Secret Cooks Club's Nyotaimori dinner, chef Daniel Sia of The Disgruntled Chef, said: "As a chef, I don't see why women should be used to serve food. It is simply degrading to the woman and I don't see a point in that. "To me, serving food on a woman's body does not add to the taste or enjoyment of the food." Asked if he would eat sushi off a naked woman, Mr Sia replied: "I don't think so." The editor of SoShiok.com, a Singapore Press Holdings food website, Ms Chen Jingwen, said that she had attended an exclusive Japanese dinner here where sushi was served on two naked women. She recalled: "I was shocked to see two naked women lying on the table, with their private parts covered by flowers. "I was later told that alcohol was used to rub the women's bodies for hygiene purposes before the food was placed on them." Ms Chen said it felt strange to eat sushi off another woman's body. She said: "It doesn't excite me. On the other hand, I also wouldn't be excited to eat sushi off a naked man."
