Puffer fish
A famous Japanese proverb says: “A fool who eats puffer fish, but who does not eat it, is even more foolish. The puffer fish has many other names - fahak, dioodont, blowfish and dog. It is used to prepare not only the most delicious and expensive Japanese dishes, but also deadly ones.
Puffer fish poison that has no antidote
A complex lunch made from fugu fish costs about a thousand dollars. For this amount, you can both feast on delicious delicacies and die painfully. The thing is that this fish contains a deadly poison of neuroparalytic action - tetradotoxin. It is 400 times more toxic than strychnine and 10 times more dangerous than curare. Just one fish can kill more than 35 people. Fatal poisoning can be obtained even simply by touching the especially poisonous innards of a puffer fish. Tetradotoxin paralyzes all muscles in the human body, including the respiratory muscles, resulting in respiratory arrest and death. There is no antidote to this poison. The only way to save the victim is to quickly hospitalize him in the intensive care unit and connect to an artificial respiration apparatus.
The responsibility of the cook
Going to a restaurant and planning to enjoy puffer fish, you should understand that you are completely surrendering your life to the skill of the cook. For a long time, even the fishing of this fish was banned in Japan. Only since 1958 has the government allowed it to be served in restaurants, provided that only specially trained chefs with a special license will be engaged in the preparation of puffer fish. To obtain this license, they go through a fairly long training, and then pass an exam in which they themselves must eat the fish they have prepared. Earlier in Japan there was even an unwritten law, according to which in the event of the death of a restaurant customer, the cook was obliged to commit ritual suicide (seppuku).
Fugue fish: cooking
Butchering this fish is a real art. With a very quick movement, it is necessary to separate the fins, cut off the mouth apparatus, and then open the belly. After that, very carefully remove all the insides, which are the most poisonous parts of the puffer fish.
Fillets are cut into thinnest slices and thoroughly washed under running water, removing the remains of poison and traces of blood from them.
To prepare fugu sashimi (Fugusashi) from fish, slices of raw fish are laid out on a large and beautiful dish, creating a landscape or an image of a butterfly or bird from them in a pearlescent color. Fugu fillet slices are eaten by dipping them in vinegar sauce (ponzu) or a mixture of red pepper and grated radish (momiji-oroshi).
Fugusushi is only the very first course of a "set" lunch. It is followed by a soup made from fugu fish and rice, seasoned with a raw egg (fugu-zosui). And for the second course - fried puffer fish.
The pieces of fish should be served by the chef to the guests in a strictly defined order. They start with the least poisonous and tastier dorsal part. The closer to the abdominal part, the more poison is contained in the meat. One of the main tasks of the chef is to monitor the condition of the restaurant guests in order not to allow them to eat more than a safe dose.
An experienced cook, when cooking fugu fish, leaves so much poison in it to cause mild poisoning in eaters, which manifests itself as a slight narcotic euphoria. According to gourmets who have tasted puffer fish, as they consume dishes from it, they have a paralyzing wave. It lies in the fact that people lose the ability to move their legs, then their arms and, at the very last moment, their jaws. Only the eyeballs retain the ability to move. But after a few moments, muscle tone begins to recover in the reverse order. It is believed that people take mortal risks precisely in order to survive this moment of "resurrection".
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