CHRIS WALKER VS. EATING FUGU

There have been two things I’ve wanted to do practically all my life: 01.) work on a Alaskan King Crab fishing boat (my family would kill me before the ocean could); 02.) eat fugu.

Fugu is the Japanese word for puffer fish, a feared and revered delicacy, world-renown for the fact if improperly prepared it will kill you. In a very horrible way. The skin, liver, internal and reproductive organs of the puffer fish contain a poison called tetrodotoxin. Tetrodotoxin, when ingested in a large enough amount, paralyzes the body but allows the brain to continue functioning. So, while your body shuts down and you suffocate to death you remain cognizant. I’ve heard the poison can kill you in less than fifteen seconds; I’m sure those are a long fifteen seconds. Due to the deadly nature of the puffer fish, it has been banned in several countries. In places it is not prohibited you have to have to have a special license to prepare it.

Why do I want to eat puffer fish? It’s taboo. Dangerous. Oh yeah, and I guess I’m out of my fucking mind.

My desire to try fugu recently hit a road block while watching an episode of Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods. I can’t remember if Zimmern actually ate fugu on the show but I do remember him saying, “over a hundred people die from eating fugu…a year.” A year? I was kind of hoping to hear a hundred people ever. Suddenly, my survival odds didn’t seem so good.

To make matters worse, my dad e-mailed me this article from SFGate.com. Fish vendors in Thailand have been passing off puffer fish as salmon and it’s killed more than 15 people in the last three years, hospitalizing about 115. At first I thought, 15 deaths in three years? Cut up by fish mongers with no fugu licenses, sold to restaurateurs who think they’re serving salmon? Not too bad. Then I thought about the statement a little more: more than 15 people. Well, shit, that could mean anything. 78 is more than 15; 256 is more than 15. So is a thousand. All that statement really means is no less than 14 people died.

I started wondering about who would mistake puffer fish for salmon. Do they even look alike? I’ve never seen the meat of a puffer fish but raw salmon has a very distinct appearance. And do they taste alike? If puffer fish can pass for salmon, and no one can tell the difference until they’re dead, is it really worth eating? If I’m going to eat a fish capable of asphyxiating me to death in one bite I want it to taste like something I’ve never tasted before – I want it to taste like heaven, not salmon. If I am to, perhaps, meet my end through culinary adventures maybe I don’t want to take the risk with puffer fish after all.

Then I remembered something from Michael Ruhlman’s most recent book, The Reach of a Chef. Much of the end of the book is dedicated to Thomas Keller’s Per Se and Masa Takayama’s Masa – both haute restaurants on the fourth floor of Manhattan’s Time Warner Center – the latter of which is arguably the greatest sushi restaurant in the US, possibly the world. It costs somewhere between $350 – $400 just to get through the door at Masa; cell phones are not allowed; there is no menu, master chef Takayama serves you whatever he wants. The experience is said to be life-altering. To top it all off, fugu (when in season, mind you) is served at Masa. But not just any fugu: poisonless fugu.

According to The Reach of a Chef, the poison process begins when the puffer fish eats a certain type of shellfish. If the puffer fish never consumes that shellfish the poison is never produced thus; the puffer fish is not deadly to eat. Masa uses this kind of puffer fish: pen-raised, allowed to flourish in their natural habitat but isolated from the shellfish; a revolutionary idea and a way to eat puffer fish without risking death. My survival odds had improved.

Now, I’m faced with a new dilemma: does fugu maintain its appeal, its mystique, when you know eating it won’t kill you? I’m not sure. It’s almost like Cuban cigars: would anyone give a shit if there was no trade embargo? Probably not. To eat fugu, to not eat fugu, that is the question. In a way it’s almost like asking, “Would you play Russian roulette without a bullet in a chamber, or would you play Russian roulette at all?” Only if Russian roulette was served with sake and tasted delicious. Or, perhaps, tastes like salmon.

Posted: August 23rd, 2007 | Author: Chris Walker | Filed under: Food, Fugu, Masa, Michael Ruhlman, Puffer Fish, Thomas Keller | No Comments »