How fugu or pufferfish gets to your table: all you need to know about Japan’s deadly delicacy – and the secret way it is auctioned
The fish is so poisonous it can lead to agonising death by respiratory failure, but it is a rare and expensive delicacy in Japan, and is sold at a curious auction that involves only secret hand signals and gestures
In the corner of a Japanese fish market bustling with visitors, the vending machine selling Hyper Aqua water features a cartoon. The image looking back at me – in fact, winking at me – is of a smiling pufferfish, known as fugu, its pink lips drinking from a bottle balanced on one of its fins. It’s a typically cute Japanese advertising ploy, but one using a cartoon fish with a dark secret.
The lure of the pufferfish, a rare and expensive delicacy, is down to tetrodotoxin, a poison which, when ingested, can potentially induce symptoms including numbness and paralysis, before a terrifying, agonising death by respiratory failure, the poor victim conscious until the horrible end.
It’s surprising then that people willingly consume dishes that could – in theory – contain this neurotoxin. It’s also a fish sold at auction in a truly remarkable way.
The history of eating fugu in Japan is said to date back more than 3,000 years with fossilised remnants found across the country in archaeological digs and in mounds that served as ancient rubbish dumps. The famed 17th century Japanese poet known as Basho even composed traditional haiku poems about it – with a wry sense of humour: “I enjoyed fugu and soup yesterday. Luckily, nothing has happened.”
It is said that the Japanese emperor was historically forbidden to eat fugu because of the risks, as the tissues of some of the fish’s internal organs – notably the liver – can be more than 1,000 times more lethal than cyanide.
Indeed, eating fugu was banned in the 16th century and only became legal in 1888 on the orders of the first prime minister of Japan, Hirobumi Ito.