5 men sickened after eating poisonous puffer fish

[yuiyoshida]

Source: JapanToday




TOKYO —

Five Japanese men became sick after eating poisonous puffer fish, an official said Tuesday, the latest victims of a delicacy seen as sophisticated by fans and crazy by others.

The men, all in their 40s and 50s, dined at a restaurant in western Wakayama city on Friday night, the city’s health official said.

They were taken ill early the next day, experiencing breathing difficulties and vomiting, the official said.

“They consumed a dinner that included liver, which is regarded as toxic material,” she told AFP, reading from a statement.

Read more: http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/5-men-sickened-after-eating-poisonous-puffer-fish

[Thor_MN]

1. I wonder how much they paid for that.

More than they bargained for, in any case.

[Nihil]

2. Darwin Award contenders ...

... on the same level as morons who get hospitalised for playing with snakes.

I like it when the fish strikes back from the grave

[CBGLuthier]

3. Why? One would like to assume that the chef understands the concepts

and is trained to ameliorate the risks so I see no reason to blame the consumers. I would blame a bad chef.

[Nihil]

4. One, in turn, is led to assume ...

... that anyone who is bet their health (or even their life) on your first assumption
is thus a Darwin Award contender as they are risking everything on a moment of
blind faith - the belief that the person who prepares the fish will do so safely this
time - for the chance of gaining what? An opportunity to blow lots of money on a
pointless & non-nutritious "meal"? "Street cred"?



Yes, ultimately the "blame" for the presence of toxin in the food presented is
down to the chef but the "blame" for the result affecting those individuals is
down to the individuals themselves.

It's a different peer-group equivalent of "Hey guys, put down your beer and watch this!"

[Kelvin Mace]

20. In the South.

it is "Hold MY beer, and watch this!".

[Android3.14]

5. In this case, it's not about blame

But poor choices.

It's like blaming a construction company for stumbling in the streets of Pomplona and a bull ran over your ass.

[Art_from_Ark]

7. The rule of thumb for eating puffer fish (fugu) in Japan is

"If you want to eat it, you take responsibility for your own actions." Everyone knows eating fugu can be deadly, and the toxicity can vary, depending on


1．ふぐは種類によって毒力が異なる。the species

2．臓器の種類によって毒力が異なる。and the type of organ

3．毒力は個体差が大きい。Toxicity can even vary widely among individual fish.

4．有毒とされている臓器は通年で有毒である。Toxic organs are toxic throughout the year.

5．漁獲海域によって毒力が異なる場合がある。There are even cases where toxicity can vary depending on where the fish was caught.

[Hestia]

8. Agreed - I thought the chefs undergo rigorous training in preparation of puffer fish. Aren't they

licensed by the country too? Somebody - chef and restaurant - really screwed up here. This is a BFD in that world.

[Hestia]

10. Yeah, from the article

In order to get a license for serving the fish, restaurant chefs must train for years to pass a stringent exam, which includes paper and practical tests on how to distinguish poisonous parts from others.

Strict regulations are often credited with the low level of fatalities.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. most of those think their faith protects them from the bites.

But eating these fish? That is just stupid.

[Art_from_Ark]

9. Some people just get a thrill out of tempting fate

[yuiyoshida]

12. If I ever visit Tokyo

I would still try it, and yes it will be expensive but, I would also seek out the restaurant famous for making this kind of sashimi and eat only what the chef prepares and not asking for the most poisonous parts!


Added note, I also want to try Durian Fruit!

[Art_from_Ark]

13. Here you go

Prices at this restaurant in the Asakusa district of Tokyo start out at 8,000 yen (about $70). Enjoy!

http://www.uosei-asakusa.com/menu_w_fugu.htm

[yuiyoshida]

14. Sugoii!!

Arigatou Art-san, I can feel my lips tingling already

[Bonobo]

24. It doesn't make your lips tingle.

I never felt it, everyone I asked has never felt it, and I suspect if you did actually feel it, you would die.

The rest is imagination.

気のせい。

[yuiyoshida]

25. It was an episode of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern who

mentioned the Tingle on the lips. I can not find the episode I had heard it, but I did find this interesting video:

"To Die For"


And then the tingling sensation begins. It starts on my lips and seems to be quickly tracking down the back of my throat. I put down my chopsticks and shift my legs under the table. I bring the tips of my fingers to my mouth and begin touching my lips in a tender, slightly agitated way, like a dental patient shot full of Novocain.

“Do your lips feel numb?” I ask Shinji.

“My lips don’t feel numb!” he cries, between enthusiastic bites of fugu flesh.

“Oh God.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Don’t people get numb lips when they eat fugu,” I hear myself say. “Or does that mean I’m going to die?”

By now Hashimoto is aware that I’m a restaurant critic from New York, and he’s hovering over the table, looking on in his fish-stained coat. Shibireru is the Japanese word for “to become numb,” and within fugu circles its presence, during the course of the meal, is a matter of debate. In his book, Parker Bowles writes that a fugu chef’s skill lies in removing the liver and ovaries intact while “leaving the slightest trace of poison to gently numb the lips.” He goes on to say, however, that “many gourmands disagree, arguing that the numbing of the lips is urban myth.” Hashimoto favors the urban-myth theory. He suggests that in my excitement, I am probably experiencing a kind of phantom shibireru. Because of the intensity of the fugu’s poison, if I were feeling real numbness, my situation would be dire indeed. “It is your mind playing tricks,” the chef says. “If your lips are really numb, then nobody can save you. If your lips are really numb, Mr. Platt, then you are already dead.”

To attempt to calm my nerves, I order one glass of beer, then another. But the small room feels even smaller now. A sheen of flop sweat has collected on my forehead, and my heart is racing like a baboon’s. Trying not to act like the terror-stricken foreigner undergoing the classic fugu near-death experience, I take out my notebook and begin professionally asking the chef about his trade. He tells me he has been preparing the fish since 1986, when he began working part time at a fugu restaurant while studying sociology in college. “I always wanted to be a craftsman,” Hashimoto says, “and this is a lot more exciting than sociology.” Did he have a favorite part of the fugu experience? “I like every part of the dinner,” says the chef. “You don’t go to the circus just to see the tigers; you go to the circus to enjoy the whole show.”

“Where the hell is everybody?” I whisper to my interpreter in the empty restaurant. “Maybe it’s the rain,” he replies. “Or maybe Chef Hashimoto has killed them.”

More sake is served, followed by more beer, followed by our next course, which is a little helping of deep-fried fugu ribs. The bony ribs (“These look like hamster ribs,” I tell Shinji) are hacked in little pieces, tossed in flour, and seasoned with sea salt and a sprinkling of the dried kelp called kombu. The ribs have the nice meaty texture of monkfish, they’re perfectly fried, and they’re delicious. (This may simply prove that anything tastes good fried, including bony, potentially fatal fish ribs.) I eat several of them, trying not to focus on the phantom-shibireru sensation that now seems to be creeping, inexorably, toward my lungs and heart. I’m moved, between bites, to ask Hashimoto whether there has ever been a fugu “accident” in his restaurant. Shinji translates my question, and the chef says something that causes the two dignified Japanese gentlemen to laugh out loud.

“Chef Hashimoto says if someone had an accident in his restaurant, he wouldn’t tell you, because it would be bad for business,” says Shinji. “But don’t worry, there was an American in here a few weeks ago, and he didn’t have an accident.”

“That’s good.”

“But Mr. Hashimoto thinks you should know something.”

“What’s that?”

“That other American, he didn’t eat fugu sperm sac.”

With the possible exception of the illicit liver, no part of the fugu creates quite the same flutter of excitement among blowfish lovers as the fugu sperm sac. The literal translation of shira-ko is “white babies.” (“In Japan,” Shinji tells me, “we have many ways of avoiding direct expression.”) In fugu circles, it’s considered an exotic seasonal treat: Because the fish spawn in early spring, the delicacy appears only briefly, like the white truffles from Alba that fill the grand New York restaurants every fall. The appeal of the dish, according to Chef Masa, comes in part from its pure, milky texture (“It’s smooth,” he says, “like Brie cheese”) and its obvious overtones of virility. But the dish’s most enticing quality is its extra touch of lethality. It’s the only edible part of the fugu innards, and when not fully engorged, the sperm sac looks uncannily like a set of the deadly fugu ovaries. “If you eat fresh ovary by mistake,” says Hashimoto, “then you die.”

http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/46462/index3.html

[Bonobo]

26. Like I thought...

If you did feel a tingle, you're in trouble.

Andrew was either full of shit or trying to be entertaining.

[Art_from_Ark]

27. You know, ever since I posted that information about that fugu restaurant

I keep getting ads for that restaurant every time I open a page on DU

[yuiyoshida]

29. They should send you

a free coupon!

[cemaphonic]

19. If you puree an onion, and then throw in a bunch of sugar, that's pretty much durian.

Tastes better than it smells, of course, but the people that claim that it is delicious are deluded.

[LanternWaste]

21. Or bungee jumping... or mountain climbing. Or a host of other activities

"on the same level as morons who get hospitalised (sic) for playing with snakes..."

Or bungee jumping... or mountain climbing. Or a host of other activities we often rationalize as allowing us a good return on our investment-- until...

[Nihil]

22. O/T but FYI ...

> "... who get hospitalised (sic) for ..."

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hospitalised

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[HomerRamone]

11. Fugu!

Classic early Simpsons: http://www.hulu.com/watch/33383

[INdemo]

15. Ok Chesapeak Bay area DU's

many years ago we use to catch what they called blow fish.These fish would inflate themselves as if they had a built in air hose
We cleaned them by cutting along the back bone and pulling the meat away.
They were delicious. So Obviously this "puffer" fish are not the same are they?

[yuiyoshida]

16. no.

Fugu is the Japanese word for pufferfish and the dish prepared from it, normally species of genus Takifugu, Lagocephalus, or Sphoeroides, or porcupinefish of the genus Diodon. Fugu can be lethally poisonous due to its tetrodotoxin; therefore, it must be carefully prepared to remove toxic parts and to avoid contaminating the meat.[1]

The restaurant preparation of fugu is strictly controlled by law in Japan and several other countries, and only chefs who have qualified after three or more years of rigorous training are allowed to prepare the fish.[1][2] Domestic preparation occasionally leads to accidental death.[2]

Fugu is served as sashimi and chirinabe.[2] Some consider the liver the tastiest part, but it is also the most poisonous, and serving this organ in restaurants was banned in Japan in 1984.[2] Fugu has become one of the most celebrated and notorious dishes in Japanese cuisine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugu

[dembotoz]

17. think i will stick with big macs

they may not be real good for me but i prob won't end up in a hosp because on it tomorrow

[Throd]

18. Fugu says "No, fug-YU."

[Bonobo]

23. I have eaten the liver several times.

It is illegal to serve, even if you are licensed so don't tell anyone.

They are like marshmallows and fugu is delicious as sashimi, in a nabe (stew) and fried as well.

Also, it should be noted that raised blowfish are not very poisonous at all. Only the wild ones since in the wild they seek out the foods that give them their toxin.

[Art_from_Ark]

28. Ah, that could explain why toxicity varies greatly among individual fish

and can even depend on where the fish was caught.