It’s the middle of winter in Tokyo and my scarf wraps around a jacket zipped all the way to the top. I’m tentatively making my way to Genpin restaurant down a dark, lonely thoroughfare in the working class Sumida district, pondering whether to try Japan’s most notorious yet beloved delicacy - the lethal blowfish, known as fugu.
On this icy Wednesday evening in one of the world’s busiest cities, the tavern-like restaurant is surprisingly quiet apart from a few creaky floorboards. I’m wondering if I’ll make my flight home tonight, this time for an entirely different reason.
Blowfish (fugu is derived from “fuku,” which means “to blow” in Japanese) is mainly a winter luxury in Japan when the fish is at its peak as it fattens to survive the seasonal chill. I’m told that the chef at Genpin has just returned from Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market with some prime fugu, caught in the waters off Miyazaki prefecture, in southern Japan.
A school of them patrol the restaurant window. Surely never have tank-dwelling fish wielded so much power. They’re certainly not the most appetising animal - long stumpy bodies with beady eyes and ludicrously large lips. They’re sluggish, lethargic and thick-skinned. You soon realise why the Chinese dubbed them ‘river pigs’.
The growth in popularity of fugu with daredevil eaters means that chefs now import them throughout parts of Australia and the US. Tonight there are no food inspectors or scientists to check the delicate meat at customs, just one chef cleaning the fugu in the kitchen sink.
Tetrodotoxin, the name of the poison that collects in the fish, exists predominantly in the liver and ovaries. The compound is thought to be produced by the shellfish that blowfish,are fond of consuming. Symptoms of tetrodotoxin poisoning include dizziness, exhaustion, and nausea. Eventually your muscles begin to freeze—first your lips and tongue, then the tips of your fingers. You must trust the chef and his fugu-hiki – a thin, ominous-looking knife used to safely extract the maximum amount of meat from the small, expensive fish.
The Japanese love affair with the sea critter has been long lasting. Blowfish bones have been excavated in shell mounds in Japan going back more than 2,000 years. The fish has even permeated Japanese literature (“I cannot see her tonight/I have to give her up/So I will eat fugu,” writes eighteenth-century poet Yosa Buson). During the Tokugawa and Meiji periods (1603–1912), Japanese authorities banned people from eating it. Today, it’s still illegal to serve fugu to the emperor.
Chef Yoshifumi Tanimoto is from Tokushima, three hours south of Osaka, a renowned fugu city. After first tasting the fish at his parent’s restaurant aged just three, he became a qualified fugu chef at 19. “And I haven’t killed anyone…for 22 years,” he says playfully in between sniggers.
Tanimoto spent the three years studying to attain the coveted fugu licence that is a requirement for the profession. At the end of the training period, all applicants take a final exam where they dissect the fish, differentiating the toxic and non-toxic parts under the watchful eyes of health inspectors.
After people died during WWII foraging in garbage cans behind fugu restaurants, chefs now, by law, must keep the fish entrails in a locked container. The containers are taken to the fish market, where city authorities incinerate them.
Despite due diligence, accidental deaths do still occur. According to the Bureau of Social Welfare and Public Health in Tokyo, 315 cases of poison by fugu were reported between 1996 and 2005 in Japan, 31 of which were fatal. Most are the result of fishermen playing Russian roulette or amateur chefs trying to replicate cooking demonstrations they have seen on TV.
“I love eating the fugu liver [kimo], which you’re not allowed to but sometimes gives you extra flavour,” chef Tanimoto tells me. “It’s a delicacy like foie gras, really beautiful.”
However it wasn’t so beautiful for the popular Kabuki actor Mitsugoro Bando VIII who in Kyoto in January, 1975 overdosed on the fish’s deadly liver. Chefs are now prohibited from serving fugu liver, but the pushy Bando is said to have demanded the delicacy, ate four servings, and died.
Back at Genpin I stumble through some Japanese phrases and set up camp in the first booth. My long legs fold like origami under the low-slung table. I study the menu and opt for fugu-sashi (sashimi) and a tall glass of local beer. After ordering, I read, “‘We only serve the freshest tiger fugu”’ along the margin. Torafugu or ‘tiger’ pufferfish are considered to be the wagyu of blowfish. Coveted by connoisseurs both for their unique flavour and perversely for their concentration of lethal toxins. “A six-pound tiger fugu has enough poison to take out at least 32 healthy adults,” notes Tom Parker Bowles in his book, The Year of Eating Dangerously.
As the dish arrives at the table I only half-jokingly ask the waitress whether the fish is safe. She says yes and rolls her eyes as she leaves. Nevertheless, I’m covertly scouring each sliver looking for the first signs of impurity or imperfection.
The fugu is presented in a fan of fragments, an arrangement constructed to replicate a chrysanthemum, which a local happily tells me, is the funeral flower of Japan. These precious shreds of fish are so thin that you can see the blue-and-white patterns on the china plate underneath.
After letting a sea of Ponzu sauce envelop the first piece of translucent fish –I’m hoping it works as a disinfectant – it enters my mouth. The meat is disappointingly flavourless but texturally it’s more intriguing. Clean, smooth and resiliently chewy - like squid.
“Hmmm,I would say the flavour is lovely, a real delicacy,” Tanimoto says. “A fine taste, especially when it’s still moving,” he chuckles.
The Japanese consume an estimated 10, 000 tons of the fish each year but I’m feeling queasy over a few slivers. I’m hot, dazed and panicky. The lights are too bright. I begin to check my watch periodically. After washing my face in the bathroom, my earlier confidence has given way to a full-blown fugu meltdown. Cigar smoke saunters through the tin lampshade above the table next to me, the group laughing heartily over their meal.
I take out a pad and begin to write notes - before long, my heart rate slows and I begin to relax. The plate by now is empty.
Leaving the restaurant, my main emotion isn’t excitement or satisfaction but relief. I walk out into the alley where two boys throw a baseball back and forth. I sip some green tea and melt into a post-adrenaline calm. Everything feels more vivid and bright as I walk back to the hotel.
For once, just being alive is enough. Although, I might go and find some dessert first.
