Dicing death: The fish more poisonous than cyanide
From : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18065372
BB C
By Roland Buerk BBC News, Tokyo
The Japanese delicacy fugu, or
blowfish, is so poisonous that the smallest mistake in its preparation could be
fatal. But Tokyo's city government is planning to ease restrictions that allow
only highly trained and licensed chefs to serve the dish.
Kunio Miura always uses his special
knives to prepare fugu - wooden-handled with blades tempered by a swordsmith to
a keen edge. Before he starts work in his kitchen they are brought to him by an
assistant, carefully stored in a special box.
Miura-san, as he is respectfully
known, has been cutting up blowfish for 60 years but still approaches the task
with caution. A single mistake could mean death for a customer.
Fugu is an expensive delicacy in
Japan and the restaurants that serve it are among the finest in the country. In
Miura-san's establishment a meal starts at $120 (£76) a head, but people are
willing to pay for the assurance of the fugu chef licence mounted on his wall,
yellowed now with age. He is one of a select guild authorised by Tokyo's city
government to serve the dish.
When he begins work the process is
swift, and mercifully out of sight of the surviving fugu swimming in their tank
by the restaurant door.
Roland Buerk watches chef Kunio
Miura prepare the fugu
First he lays the despatched fish,
rather square of body with stubby fins, on its stomach and cuts open the head
to removes its brain and eyes.
They are carefully placed in a metal
tray marked "non-edible". Then he removes the skin, greenish and
mottled on the top and sides, white underneath, and starts cutting at the guts.
"This is the most poisonous
part," he says pulling out the ovaries. But the liver and intestines are
potentially lethal too. "People say it is 200 times more deadly than
cyanide."
Tetrodotoxin
poisoning
- Numbness around the mouth followed by paralysis and death by respiratory failure - the victim remaining conscious throughout
- First recorded case found in the logs of Captain Cook in 1774, after crew members ate the fish
- Tetrodotoxin is named after the Tetraodontiformes order of fish, which includes blowfish
- It is also found in blue-ringed octopuses, some toads, newts and other animals
Twenty-three people have died in
Japan after eating fugu since 2000, according to government figures. Most of
the victims are anglers who rashly try to prepare their catch at home. A
spokesman for the Health and Welfare Ministry struggles to think of a single
fatality in a restaurant, though last year a woman was hospitalised after
eating a trace of fugu liver in one of Tokyo's top restaurants - not
Miura-san's.
Tetrodotoxin poisoning has been
described as "rapid and violent", first a numbness around the mouth,
then paralysis, finally death. The unfortunate diner remains conscious to the
end. There is no antidote.
"This would be enough to kill
you," Miura-san says, slicing off a tiny sliver of fugu ovary and holding
it up. Then he carefully checks the poisonous organs on the tray, making sure
he has accounted for every one, and tips them into a metal drum locked with a
padlock. They will be taken to Tokyo's main fish-market and burned, along with
the offcuts from other fugu restaurants.
Miura-san's skill is therefore
highly prized. Fugu chefs consider themselves the elite of Japan's highly
competitive culinary world. He started as an apprentice in a kitchen at the age
of 15. Training lasts at least two years but he was not allowed to take the
practical test to get a licence until he was 20, the age people become a legal
adult in Japan. A third of examinees fail.
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