I guess the blowfish we used to catch in the surf at the Jersey shore are different.
We sometimes fried them up for breakfast.
It could be a different species. IIRC there is talk about genetically engineered farmed fugu that would be perfectly safe. But then it wouldn’t have any more appeal in Japan’s foofoo fish dishes than a carp.
Oh... and IIRC even the present fugu only gets the poison from microorganisms in the water it lives in. If one is raised in water without these microorganisms, the fugu does not have the poison either.
“I guess the blowfish we used to catch in the surf at the Jersey shore are different. We sometimes fried them up for breakfast.”
That had to be 40 years ago. When I was a kid I use to catch them all the time. I also caught snapper blues from the rocks at Brighton Beach.
You remember when they running too? You’d catch tons of them. My Dad cooked them up for us all the time. Not much meat in them but good tasting.