![]() Entrance sign curtain of an inn specializing in fugu cuisine Fugu Dining Experience at a Traditional InnĪfter checking into our rooms, and enjoying a nice hot bath, we gathered in the dining area on the ground floor for our fugu dining course. So it was not without a certain amount of trepidation that I set out to stay one night at Yoshiko Ryokan ( ryori ryokan yoshiko 料理旅館由幸), located in Hibiki village about twenty minutes from Wakasa-Takahama station by car, to try their main attraction: fugu cuisine. According to his experience, although sashimi fugu was somewhat tasteless, the deep fried version was amazing and definitely worth a try. I guess what really changed my mind, was reading the book by the British food and travel writer Michael Booth called Sushi and Beyond. Even if there is only the tiniest of risks, why take it, when according to most accounts, it tastes like chicken? When I shared my concerns with my Japanese friends, they calmly reassured me, saying that nowadays nobody dies of eating fugu. However, up till now, I had never eaten any part of the fugu fish, simply because I was afraid I could die from the experience. I’ve eaten many kinds of interesting dishes since I came to live in Japan, from the gross-looking monjayaki, to the not-so-appealing organs of horumonyaki. As a result, the number of fugu-related incidents has dropped dramatically, and nowadays it’s said that enjoying fugu at a licensed restaurant is a risk-free experience. In more recent years, fugu preparation has become very strictly controlled by law in Japan, and chefs need to train for several years before they can get a license to prepare fugu for serving to diners. In the past, people have been sickened, and have even died after consuming fugu that was improperly prepared. ![]() ![]() The Poisonous Pufferfishįugu, also known as blowfish or pufferfish in English, has quite a bad reputation, very simply because some of its inner organs are poisonous. If you stay the night, you may even be able to check out a fugu farm from close up, feed, and even feel the fugu’s puffed up underbelly. Numerous traditional inns and restaurants in the area serve this sought after delicacy, for a much cheaper price than in most other parts of Japan. Unless you have fugu fisheries in a nearby bay, which is precisely the case for Takahama town, located on the Western coast of Japan, a couple of hours by train North of Kyoto. Usually, that would involve a trip to an expensive, high-end restaurant. The offal of the blowfish would be thrown away and the staving people would find and eat it.For any foodie visiting Japan, eating fugu should be on their list of must-eat foods, since it’s next-to-impossible to have in other countries. The horror stories that you hear about people dying from consumption were mostly from the post-war era when there was a lot of starvation. I think it was Andrew Zimmern (or maybe Anthony Bourdain) who had some and said that his lips went numb and tingly, but that was about it. If you wash the fillets properly, there is only a minute chance of any serious poisoning. ![]() The majority of the toxin is in the organs and skin, a very small amount in the muscle. That's not to say that the toxin isn't deadly, but tetrodotoxin poisoning can be managed if you're lucky enough to get put on life support right away (a very ELI5 version is that it's a neurotoxin, paralyzes you and can make it so you can't survive without a machine breathing and pumping blood for you, until it wears off). My dad's worked at a Japanese restaurant for years, he says that the poison factor is played up quite a bit to keep the "dangerous" edge to the fish.
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