willardguy
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fugu too
so if the soc is truly running out of fish, maybe its time to develop a taste for the little guys you usually throw back! anyone ever eat a puffer?
interesting story.
FUGU – THE DEADLY DELICACY!
Japanese maxim: “To throw away life, eat fugu.”
Fugu is the Japanese name for the most delicate, dangerous, and expensive fish in the world that, in spite of being extremely poisonous, continues to
be the most stimulating delicacy for special feasts in Japan. Because of its small fins fugu is a very sluggish, clumsy, and fatuous-looking fish,
which has developed the peculiar defense mechanism of gulping large amounts of water into its stomach so as to inflate and turn its chubby body into a
menacing spiky ball twice its normal size, leaving predators unable to swallow it. The name “fugu” comes from “***u” (to swell, to blow) as in the
Japanese proverb about people who internalize their worries: “If you don’t speak (about your problems), your stomach swells.”
This characteristic also led the Japanese to spell fugu with the Chinese characters for “river pig”, although it is a salt-water fish. Fugu obviously
deserves this name since even in its normal state it is, indeed, an unsightly, squat, scaleless fish with sneering lips and glutinous skin. In English
it is often referred to as the puffer fish, blowfish, globefish, balloon fish, swellfish, or “the blowie”.
Puffers have fascinated observers around the world for centuries. The tomb of the Fifth Dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Ti who lived around 2700 B.C. was
engraved with the puffer’s bloated image. Ancient Egyptians apparently also used some puffer species as a ball in a primitive game of bowls. The
highly toxic Red Sea puffer fish is also believed to have prompted the biblical injunction against eating fish without fins and scales: “These ye
shall eat of all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat: And whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is
unclean unto you” (Deuteronomy14:9-10).
Nowadays fugu cuisine is regulated by rigid laws and it can only be served by licensed chefs, thus ensuring maximum security for fugu partakers. In
the prefecture of Tokyo, which has one of the most rigorous programs, training takes from five to seven years, and includes an apprenticeship and an
exam. Prospective puffer chefs learn the identification of blowfish species, their distinctive anatomy, relative toxicity of the parts, methods of
disemboweling and cleaning, instructions for preparation, and even first aid procedures. To make the cooks’ lives more difficult, the ovaries, which,
along with the liver, are the most poisonous parts, are terribly difficult to distinguish from the milt, which is considered a particularly palatable
delicacy. Plus, there are about 20 popular varieties of fugu to choose from. And, of course, not all people are eligible for training – color-blind
people, people with poor vision and minors, for instance, are not allowed to handle puffers.
Fugu is served mostly in wintertime in order to avoid increased levels of toxicity generated as a reproductive defense mechanism. Therefore, there is
a considerable difference in prices over the seasons. Though many fishermen still catch fugu with hooks and nets, Japan has been particularly
successful in artificial cultivation. Puffers are usually harvested in spring, in the midst of their spawning season. Then people cultivate the
blowfish in large offshore cages. In these conditions, fugu is fed upon fresh fish until complete maturation; farmed puffers, not feeding on plankton,
are not as toxic as their free, natural “peers”.
Fishermen raise the blowies in aquafarms until the price goes up and start selling fugu at the markets in late autumn. There is also full-scale
farming including artificial insemination. Unlike most fish, which are dredged up out of the ocean and rushed to the market, where they perish on a
bed of crushed ice in some messy Japanese fish market, blowfish are sold alive. Therefore, transportation for fugu is exclusively arranged. The
puffers usually get their mouths stitched shut, as they exhibit aggression towards each other and tend to fight to death when many of them are
confined to small tanks.
In addition to the strict control mechanism over issuing licenses to cooks and restaurants, Tokyo regulations include rules for cleanliness and
preparation, locked storage of the toxic parts, careful reporting on the amount of fish handled, and the disposal of their internal organs. The
Japanese government has been regulating the disposal of fugu remains as toxic waste since several homeless people died from eating fugu remains dumped
into garbage bins. Fugu remains must be bagged in two layers of plastic and kept at home in a special locked box until they are taken to a special
fugu dump, where a fee is paid to have them destroyed. Considering the speed at which fugu is gaining popularity around the world and presuming that
the species does not consequently get extinct, you can envision the development of a new industrial branch in Japan – fugu waste disposal.
In Japan, discerning gourmets pay tremendous prices for a dinner of fugu. Only the flesh, the skin, the fins, and the milt are generally eaten. One
can order raw sliced meat, sake with strained testes, toasted bone, dried fillet seasoned with sweet sake, or even pickled ovaries – over three to
four years the ovaries lose their toxicity; besides, pickled puffer ovaries are so salty that it’s hard to eat much at one time. A meal of fugu is
always ornately presented – the raw meat is sliced paper-thin and arranged artistically in elaborate rosettes that reveal the pattern of the dish it
is presented on – a bird, a flower or any other special composition. Whether dipped in the piquant soy, chive and bitter orange sauce or eaten as
chowder, or with rice porridge, the fugu is said to have a very palatable taste. The large number of fugu restaurants in Tokyo attests to the fact
that its pearly white meat attracts and makes addicts of many a gourmet. But despite all this, fugu is the only delicacy which cannot be served to the
emperor and his family!
The puffer fish has over 100 different types worldwide, and they’re all as poisonous as hell. The skin, the intestines, the eyes, the kidneys, the
ovaries, and, above all, the liver are extremely toxic as they contain a deadly poison similar to curare for which there is no currently known
antidote. Fugu flesh is considered safe to eat, though, at times, it can be really toxic too. The amount of poison in a fish varies according to the
species, its sex, the part of its body, the time of the year, and the place where it was caught. Highest concentrations occur at spawning time, when
the gonads are at their highest toxicity. The female puffer is considerably more toxic than the male, since she has some of the deadliest organs: the
ovaries.
The actual danger about fugu is that it contains significant amounts of tetrodotoxin – a substance that is considered to be 1250 times deadlier than
cyanide, shutting down the Central Nervous System in humans. Tetrodotoxin is found in the blowfish inhabiting the warm waters off China, Taiwan, and
Japan, the Philippines, Mexico, and the Sea of Cortez off Baja, California. It’s also present in the Australian blue-ringed octopus and Xanthid crabs,
the California newt and the Eastern salamander.
Tetrodotoxin is estimated to be about 160,000 times more potent than cocaine! For instance, an average fish of fugu rubripes (torafugu) – the species
most served up as dinner fare – contains enough tetrodotoxin to kill up to 30 people in a matter of seconds. The estimated lethal dose for an adult, a
mere one to two milligrams, could fit on a pinhead. Puffer toxin blocks sodium voltage-regulated channels in nerve tissues, ultimately paralyzing
muscles. Since the respiratory system is the most sensible in such a situation, asphyxia is the ultimate cause of death. There is currently no proven
antidote, perhaps because the toxin has a molecular structure unlike anything previously known to organic chemistry. Because of its potency, the toxin
is an important tool in modern neurological research. In very diluted form it is also used as a painkiller for victims of neuralgia, arthritis and
rheumatism.
Fugu is one of the most expensive foods in Japan. It’s not unusual to find a fugu meal that costs upwards of $100 - $200. As a result, fugu is
prohibitively expensive for most people. Nevertheless, neither the risk nor the cost can keep it from being immensely popular. The fish are cultivated
on farms and sold at Haedomari Market in Shimonoseki; a single fish can bring $50 to $140. By the time it reaches your table, you can be paying upward
of $200 for the privilege of surviving the ordeal.
Yet fugu was increasingly popular. Haedomari Market in Shimonoseki – Japan’s “Fugu City” – reportedly rakes in over $40 million dollars every winter
from fugu sales alone. At one o’clock in the morning in the market, a large, high-roofed warehouse on the waterfront where 80% of Japan’s fugu catch
is sold. Even at that hour the fishermen have already transferred into warehouse tanks hundreds of live fish caught as far away as Korea. From
Shimonoseki, they will be tracked or flown throughout the country.
What does fugu meat taste like in reality? Some people who’ve tried puffer dishes describe it as one of the most sublime flavors in the world. Others,
apparently less enthusiastic, or simply more objective, describe fugu meat as a cross between crunchy and chewy, said by the Japanese to go
“shiko-shiko” in one’s mouth when absolutely fresh. That’s what some consider the main attraction of the risky meal. But taste isn’t everything. Many
say that fugu is simply addictive!
People who’ve tasted fugu report a funny feeling in their mouths, as if they had been shot with a dose of dentist’s novocaine. After a licensed
Japanese chef carefully cleans the poisonous puffer, removing the 11 deadly parts of the fish, including the skeleton, skin, ovaries, intestines, and
liver, enough of the neurotoxin remains to produce a mellow tingling glow, a flush, and a drug rush. Remember, tetrodotoxin is 160,000 times more
potent than cocaine!
Some say the delicate chickeny flavor of the fugu meat is the main attraction; others insist that fugu testes in a glass of hot sake is the best
aphrodisiac in town; yet others are partial to the warm tingling and slight numbing of the lips (the pleasant symptoms of systemic paralysis and
ensuing respiratory failure); but, doubtlessly, the biggest thrill is the striking hubris of the event, the ostentatious risk-taking that involves so
much for so little. Really, who cares what it tastes like as long as you live to tell the tale?
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woody with a view
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the Japanese would eat the slime trail of a sea cucumber if given the chance.....
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willardguy
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| Quote: | Originally posted by woody with a view
the Japanese would eat the slime trail of a sea cucumber if given the chance..... |
 and thats putting it kindly!
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DavidE
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Mood: 'At home we demand facts and get them. In Mexico one subsists on rumor and never demands anything.' Charles Flandrau,
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Honorable Tomi Immamura, self described amigo of Prime Minister Nakasone, insisted I come with him in his Isuzu pickup truck to San Francisco to the
Japanese consulate. We all thought Immamura was FOS with his Nakasone claim until one day he whipped out a huge photograph of him arm in arm with
honorable Prime Minister. Immamura was on the north coast paving the way for Japanese to purchase Sea Urchin Roe.
"My name Tomi Immamura. You not call Jap"
Within a week he became Tommy the Jap.
So we went. Big banquet hall. Suits, ties, and hundreds of cases of Sapporo beer and warm Saki. Sushi yadda this and Sushimi yadda that.
Then everything grew silent.
Six guys came through the double doors bearing a titanic platter.
"Is silver" Tommy said. It all comes from Tokyo on 747.
Six feet perhaps by four feet. Ornate platter.
On it reposed a huge flamingo design, full length. Stunningly beautifully done.
Waiters (?) came around with chopsticks placing leaf thin slices on individual plates.
"Is called Fugu" Tommy explained. "Big delicacy. Cannot get here. You try".
Tasted like raw slimy fish. A flood of Sapporo and couple of hits of Saki managed to kill it.
Second round, more beer and rice wine.
Lips got numb as did the tip of my tongue. Bolts of electricity through the shoulders. Not a great deal of it but believe me it was w-e-i-r-d. Eyelids
and cheeks got numb.
"Great delicacy" Tommy repeated. "You fortunate to do this".
Yup.
The Sapporo and the Saki were great.
Immamura was smiling the whole six hour drive back. "Tomorrow" he started in "We have Fish Head Soup" (the one where you take the lid off the pot and
see several dozen floating fish eyeballs).
THE POOR GULF DOES NOT STAND A CHANCE
A Lot To See And A Lot To Do
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woody with a view
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i have a good friend we call Billy the Jap!
true story....
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monoloco
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They sell puffer fish here, it's called botete, we eat it occasionally, it's quite good. I'm pretty sure the guy at Punta Lobos who fillets it didn't
have any formal training, but to my knowledge no one has died from eating it yet.
"The future ain't what it used to be"
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Terry28
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Woody, what would you call your friend if he was black??
Answer: Billy
Mexico!! Where two can live as cheaply as one.....but it costs twice as much.....
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woody with a view
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prolly! but when i was introduced to him i was told his name. how many Billy's do you know? i only know one of 1/2 Japanese heritage. it keeps them
apart when the stories start around a campfire!!!
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durrelllrobert
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I ate it in a soup on one of my trips to South Korea. In South Korea, fugu is known as bok-eo (복어 . It is very popular in port cities such as Busan and Incheon.
PS: I also ate soup with dog meat there. It is called Gaejangguk (개장국, -醬-)
Also ate raw jelly fish at a famous sea food restaurant.
Almost as bad as a sea cucumber's slim trail.
[Edited on 9-15-2013 by durrelllrobert]
Bob Durrell
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treuboff
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I eat them if they are big enough to filet.
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EdZeranski
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Mood: Si! Como no???
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yoboseo fido!
| Quote: | Originally posted by durrelllrobert
PS: I also ate soup with dog meat there. It is called Gaejangguk (개장국, -醬-)
Also ate raw jelly fish at a famous sea food restaurant.
Almost as bad as a sea cucumber's slim trail.
[Edited on 9-15-2013 by durrelllrobert] |
I think regular filet d' fido is kaygogi. Told that story to a friend and his lab has barked at me ever since.
EdZ KG6UTS
many trips to Korea
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