Posted on 01/27/2009 10:20:56 AM PST by NormsRevenge
Give him credit...for finding the testicles...
As with many meals that I had in Japan, I wasn't always sure of what it was that I was eating (I think that one of the 'sides' was some kind of jellyfish), but it was all elegantly-served. It wasn't evil like some of the stuff that they serve at a "yakitoria" fried-chicken-parts-on-a-skewer restaurant, especially some of the stuff that my Japanese hosts ordered as part of the game of "what kind of really gross food can we get the gaijin to eat". After a few glasses of cold sake, you aren't all that discerning about what you put into your mouth...
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Blowfish or, as the Japanese call it, Fugu is a delicacy that can contain poison enough to be the end of two dozen people at a time in just one bowl of fish.
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Eating a dish prepared by licensed chefs sounds fun, but during their license test, these chefs get to prepare various species of Fugu, which have toxins in eleven different parts of its body and the poisons are placed differently in their bodies for different species. Once they are done cooking, they are asked to eat their prepared dish. It probably would not be a consolation to those chefs to be told that they are bound to get a certificate either way, even if they failed in removing the toxins completely.
The way to the license for these chefs is not at all easy. They have to keep at preparing the Fugu for 10 straight years before they can get their certificate in the eleventh year. Quite a few succumb to the pressure; some even have to get psychological counseling because of the pressures of the job. Once prepared, even the toxins removed can not be thrown in the garbage; they are enclosed in double plastic layers before being removed in sealed boxes to dumps where the toxins are destroyed since they are not eliminated by heat.
In 1958, more than 175 deaths were reported after fugu meals, and until the government stepped in the death toll continued to increase. Even with the care that is taken in licensing the chefs now, there are still a few of those that die after eating Fugu. Has this lowered the number of people wanting a taste of Fugu? Not likely. There are restaurants in Japan which serve exclusive Fugu dishes. The better the restaurant the more the demand; for instance, there is Shunsagami that was established in 1936 serving 60 different Fugu dishes, Tsukitei started serving Fugu dishes 3 years ago but since then the reservations there are hard to come by because of the popularity of Fugu meals…and we did say the prices matched the demand, costing 38 thousand JY and above.
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Snakes can fearlessly order a fugu dinner
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Snakes don't eat fugu, the seafood delicacy prepared from blowfish meat and famed for its poisonous potential. However, should a common garter snake wander into a sushi restaurant, it could fearlessly order a fugu dinner.
The snakes have evolved resistance to the blowfish poison, tetrodotoxin (TTX), by preying on rough-skinned newts, which also secrete the toxin. Some newts are so poisonous that they harbour enough TTX to kill a roomful of adult humans.
Why would a small animal produce such an excessive amount of poison' The answer lies in the evolutionary back-and-forth between newts and garter snakes. Throughout much of their shared territory, newts and snakes have been locked in a kind of arms race: TTX-resistant snakes cause natural selection to favour ever-more poisonous newts, and the new-and-improved newts drive selection for higher resistance in snakes.
In a paper to be published March 11 in the Public Library of Science: Biology, Charles Hanifin, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station, and his co-authors say that snakes in some areas may have prevailed in the evolutionary arms race between predator and prey. Surprisingly, snakes in several geographic locations have developed such extreme resistance to TTX that newt production of the toxin cannot keep up.
Some populations of newts produce enough TTX to kill thousands of mice or 10 to 20 humans. Ounce for ounce, Hanifin said, they are even more toxic than South America's famed poison dart frogs.
'Some populations of these newts may very well represent the most toxic amphibians on the planet,' Hanifin said.
The poisonous newts have even killed off humans. The Journal of the American Medical Association reports the case of a 29-year-old man who died after swallowing an 8-inch-long newt on a dare. The journal also describes the case of a 26-year-old man in Oregon who managed to survive his encounter with the newts. After swallowing five of the animals to win a bet, he felt dizzy, began vomiting and was too weak to walk, though he later recovered under a doctor's care.
These incidents aside, the newts rarely harm humans. It is safe to handle the newts with bare hands, since the toxin is not absorbed through the skin. A newt must be ingested to be toxic, and Hanifin said the animal emits an acrid smell that probably discourages most pets and children from tasting it.
That makes me wonder if they have ratings for fugu restaurants based on how few people die after eating there.
I am happy with a good steak or Grilled Salmon.
Yum. Blowfish testicles and rotten fermented soybeans.
Blowfish testicles. Blowfish testicles. Blowfish testicles.
Y’know, there’s something odd about that phrase.
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