Blowfish has long been a delicacy only for the adventurous: every year in Japan, a few people are poisoned to death eating it.
Now scientists have put a school of pufferfish on a special diet and come up with a version that tastes just like the real thing -- without the lethal consequences.
"It's nice and soft," gushed Osamu Arakawa, a marine biologist heading the project at Nagasaki University. "As sashimi, you dip it in a citrus-flavored soy sauce -- it's delicious."
Eating pufferfish -- known in Japanese as fugu -- is not always so carefree.
The powerful poison tetrodotoxin is found in the ovaries, liver and intestines, and only specially licensed chefs are qualified to prepare the fish for human consumption.
Still, fugu remains a final meal for some. Three diners died in Japan last year from pufferfish poisoning after preparing the dish at home, according to government figures.
Researchers in Nagasaki are getting over that potentially deadly hurdle by examining the fish's diet.
"We believe that pufferfish acquire poison by eating poisonous food, such as starfish and shellfish, rather than producing it themselves. So we fed them nonpoisonous food," Arakawa said.
He and his colleagues kept about 5,000 fugu on a strict regime of mackerel and other nonpoisonous food at seven locations along Japan's west coast from 2001 to last year.
They also raised their specimens in water at least 10m above the seafloor or in purified tanks to minimize their exposure to toxins.
Arakawa says it worked. For two years, the group examined the fish every month, and they all tested negative for tetrodotoxin each time.
The fish has not yet gone into mass production for sale, but it's already causing a stir.
Some in the tourist industry are ready to promote the new fugu. A hot springs resort near Nagasaki is trying to obtain a special government permit to allow hotels and restaurants to serve the liver -- normally the most lethal part of the fish.
Japanese officials are cautious.
"The finding is a great scientific achievement, but it does not immediately mean we can guarantee food safety," said Masanori Imagawa, a Health Ministry official. "When it comes to fugu, we can't afford any mistakes."
The fish could draw some diners who have long wanted to try fugu but feared the poison. Its meat is firm and light when served raw as sashimi, and succulent when cooked in a stew.
But some pufferfish fans are sure to balk. For many, the brush with death is part of the allure of the meal, and some diners go as far as indulging in the liver -- though not until the poison has been soaked out.
Takeshi Yamasuge, a fugu restaurant owner near Tokyo, chuckled when asked about poison-less fugu.
He said his customers prefer the real thing, despite hefty prices that go as high as ?25,000 (US$230) per kilogram.
"Nontoxic fugu is boring," he declared. "Fugu is exciting because it's toxic."
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
RSS