A 78-year-old man in Nagasaki, Japan died from eating miso soup containing fugu (puffer fish) he received from a friend.
Police say that after the man ate the soup for lunch, his hands, feet, and tongue started going numb. Though he was taken to the hospital later in the day, he died early the next morning.
A fugu’s body contains signifigant amounts of tetrodotoxin, a powerful toxin. The amount of tetradotoxin required to kill a full-grown man fits on the head of a pin. Normally, fugu should be prepared only by a specially trained and licensed cook.
That’s pretty scary but the guy was 78. I wonder how a man 30 or 40 years younger would have handled it.:?:
well, I suspect he would’ve handled it by dying…
Me too, but just making a point that the man was old/weak and his health was deteriorating already… but I guess by what JP says is that anyone can die from very little toxin.
that said, do a lot of people actually risk eating this?
Ray: Check out our previous post on fugu at http://japundit.com/archives/2005/02/02/anyone-for-a-little-blow/
The folks in Saga Prefecture are still trying to get authorization to grow farm fugu.
- Amp
It has a very delicate flavor - can’t understand why anyone would want to mask it in miso soup. I’d try it again.
I always thought the dirty secret about fugu was that it has no flavor at all, so there is nothing to mask. That would explain why some people like to eat it with just a trace of the toxin left in, to provide that special tingling on the tongue. I’ll take mine battered, fried and served between 2 slices of bread.
Fugu truly has a flavor of its own, nearly indescribable.
Raw is the only way to truly enjoy it.