Surviving Fugu: A 2024 Tourist’s Guide to Eating Puffer Fish Safely
Eating puffer fish: the history of fugu and the Japanese taste for death (a true obsession)…
There is a scene in a 1977 episode of the “Torakku yarō” (Truck Guys) series in which the main character is buried up to his neck in sand; this is supposed to be some kind of cure to combat the effects of eating blowfish. The protagonist, played by Sugawara Bunta, feels his entire body go numb after ingesting the fish (notoriously poisonous if prepared incorrectly) and submits to the surprising traditional remedy.
The film takes place in the Japanese city of Shimonoseki, in the prefecture of Yamaguchi, the fugu capital of Japan. Two years before its release, Kabuki star Bandō Mitsugorō VIII died of poisoning after overindulging in his beloved liver dish torafugu (tiger fish) in a Kyoto restaurant. This has heightened media attention towards fugu and its potentially lethal properties.
According to the Ministry of Health, even today, half of the food poisoning deaths in Japan come from the consumption of pufferfish. In a typical year, around fifty people suffer from fugu poisoning, and thirty of these cases (i.e., more than half) actually turn out to be fatalities.
There are also cases of fugu poisoning in Taiwan, where a total of eleven people died in fifteen incidents between 1991 and 2011. The pufferfish contains tetrodotoxin, which causes symptoms of numbness and paralysis twenty minutes to three hours after ingestion. These spread throughout the body, in severe cases leading to death from respiratory failure.
When eating fugu, people play Russian roulette with their own lives.
Is sand burial really a good way to treat fugu poisoning?
It’s a superstition to the nth degree, says Ueno Ken’ichirō, owner of the “Shimonoseki Fuku no Seki” restaurant, specializing in blowfish, known in the local dialect as “fuku.” Previously a fugu wholesaler, Fuku no Seki is now the parent organization of the Daifuku processing company, so Ueno knows his puffer fish well, that it is high quality, and where exactly it comes from. In Yamaguchi Prefecture, there have been no cases of poisoning for decades. Aspiring fugu chefs are required to obtain licenses in many Japanese prefectures, including Yamaguchi, Fukuoka, Ōita, Tokyo, and Osaka. Ueno says: There are very strict standards in Yamaguchi. We pride ourselves on safely preparing puffer fish.
Four out of five Japanese fugu, wild-caught or farm-raised, mostly in Nagasaki Prefecture, come to Yamaguchi because of the many local processing companies. After removing toxic elements during processing, Yamaguchi ships and markets harmless fish nationwide. This makes the scenes portrayed in the film almost unimaginable. For example, serving fugu in a professional setting like a restaurant rarely results in food poisoning. In Japan, the vast majority of pufferfish poisoning incidents occur when amateurs attempt this particular dish without an expert guide to accompany them into the kitchen and help them prepare it correctly.
The case of Bandō Mitsugorō VIII was different. Many people would probably now find it difficult to understand how he considered toxic tigerfish liver a delicacy. However, many foodies of that era preferred to dip fugu sashimi in a mixture of soy sauce and fugu liver instead of wasabi. The excess flavor and numb sensations from the poisonous elements have hardened the tongue, allowing for enjoyment while drinking. Confused by numbness and alcohol, Bandō consumed too much fugu (which continues to be minimally toxic even after processing), exceeding his tolerance level and succumbing to death. Chefs would never allow this to happen today.
Shimonoseki became the center of fugu in Japan in the late nineteenth century, Shimonoseki became Japan’s fugu center. Shimonoseki became Japan’s fugu hub. Yamaguchi Prefecture is located on the western tip of the country’s main island, Honshū, and is surrounded by water on three sides.
Kyoto of the West
The region has long been referred to as the “Kyoto of the West” due to its prosperous history of trading with Korea and China. The location was the birthplace of Itō Hirobumi (1841-1909), the first prime minister of Japan. He stopped by a restaurant named Shunpanrō on his way back home.
The sea was rough that day, so it was difficult to catch any good fish. The restaurant owner’s agitated wife decided to serve Itō blowfish. The law had prohibited it since Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s rule three centuries ago, but locals had perfected the preparation method. The prime minister liked the dish so much that he decided to lift the ban on eating fugu in 1888. He even granted the first license to serve it at Shunpanrō, considered the best restaurant in Shimonoseki. In 1895, the establishment played a role in East Asian history when it was the site of the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki by Itō and Chinese politician Li Hongzhang.
The agreement put an end to the Sino-Japanese war of 1894–1895. While the law does not prohibit the consumption of this fish in Italy, it does punish the serving. However, there is an exception: a Japanese restaurant in Milan, Shiro Poporoya, is the only shop that has the license to handle and serve morsels of this potential toxic weapon to diners. The thrill of looking death in the face… In the ancient Chinese text “San hai jing” (Classic of Mountains and Seas), written over two millennia ago, it is said that eating fugu is fatal.
On the other hand, the Song Dynasty poet Su Shi (1037–1101) left several poems extolling the taste of pufferfish. In 1990, a law prohibited the internal consumption and distribution of fugu, according to Chinese history. During the quarter-century that followed, a number of Chinese companies achieved success in breeding and processing fugu for export. Since the 2016 decision to once again allow limited domestic consumption, interest in China has increased.
When the press asked Hong Kong music producer and foodie Yu Yat-yiu about fugu, he replied that he didn’t know if there were still restaurants serving it in the city. He remembered that certainly the last time some inhabitant of the area had eaten it must have been about seventy years ago, or so. He said that his great-grandmother had once suffered from food poisoning from pufferfish. In Taiwan, meanwhile, most people who eat fugu do so in Japanese restaurants where chefs have obtained the appropriate licenses to lawfully handle the ingredient.
In Japan, fugu remains have been found in kaizuka, or “shell mounds,” that served as dumping grounds for people across the country in the Jōmon period (about 10,000 BC–300 BC) and later. The endless deaths from eating the fish eventually led to Hideyoshi’s sixteenth-century ban, which continued (though imperfectly enforced) into the modern era.
For home cooking, ordinary people can now order torafugu in Yamaguchi Prefecture, even online. It took thousands of years, but Japanese knowledge and techniques overcame the toxic nature of the pufferfish. Breeding is also progressing. We have developed non-poisonous torafugu, enabling diners to enjoy high-quality farmed fish throughout the year, not just during the traditional winter season.
Today’s fugu sashimi is tasty and safe. Given that so many people died while consuming a freshly cut and fresh piece of fugu sashimi, the fish we savor today may take on an even sweeter flavor (at least for some).
