While in Tokyo I dined on a rare delicacy called fugu, or blowfish, which if prepared incorrectly can kill you with its poison. Most people eat it raw but since I'm not a true Samurai I chose to have it simmer in a hot pot with leafy vegetables. Kinda tasted like a fish/chicken hybrid. Very springy, too. I love how the fish twitches even though its been sliced and diced into a dozen pieces. Maybe he's trying to escape.
Monday, November 05, 2007
JAPAN: Dead Blowfish Lives!
While in Tokyo I dined on a rare delicacy called fugu, or blowfish, which if prepared incorrectly can kill you with its poison. Most people eat it raw but since I'm not a true Samurai I chose to have it simmer in a hot pot with leafy vegetables. Kinda tasted like a fish/chicken hybrid. Very springy, too. I love how the fish twitches even though its been sliced and diced into a dozen pieces. Maybe he's trying to escape.
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3 comments:
I was always too chicken to try Fugu while I was in Japan. I was 22 at the time, and I thought, why bother? I can come back when I'm 80 and eat it everyday. I checked the stats and 5-6 people die every year in Japan from Fugu, even after it's prepared properly. I heard that it's meant to be served with some amounts of poison (the poison releasing endorphins thus making you, well, high, a good feeling I guess). So, that's how I'm going out, death by fugu (or mercury poisoning), but not till I'm good and old.
Very brave -- I personally wouldn't want to chance a Tetrodotoxin poisoning... being conscious (but unable to communicate) while your heart & lung fails sounds like a bad bad way to go.
And seconding g, I think even the properly-prepped edible parts of the fugu have trace amounts of the toxin, which supposedly produces a tingly, endorphin like effect (and some chefs would spike fugu dishes with wasabi, etc., to produce or further accentuate upon that.)
He's trying to jump out of the pot so he can kill you. =D
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